


Providence

by surreallis



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, F/M, Heterosexual Sex, Novel, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-30
Updated: 2011-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-19 22:23:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 142,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surreallis/pseuds/surreallis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wondered what would happen if Elliot's marriage really did ever break up because of his feelings for Olivia. Then it kind of grew. As his marriage disintegrates, his relationship with Olivia gets more intense. A long story focusing on two cases, and the detectives picking their way through feelings they can no longer ignore. Along with the added complication of a temporary partner for Olivia, who happens to be attractive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Inertia

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings:  
> Graphic sex. Some violence and language. No non-con, but be aware that this IS SVU. They investigate sex crimes. So there is discussion of rape, although it's non-graphic. Elliot's wife is NOT vilified!

[]

He’s reading the paper on a Sunday morning after church when his world starts to tilt. It alarms him at first, but it doesn’t really scare him, and he doesn’t realize until later how bad it will be.

He hears Kathy in the kitchen behind him, and he still has half a cup of coffee to finish and half the sports page, so he ignores her. They’ve been running on autopilot the past few weeks, and that’s better than the arguing, so he’s been willing to go with it.

An envelope drops in front of him though, and Kathy’s silent presence settles heavily on his shoulders.

He glances at it and then at her. She stares stonily.

When he picks the envelope up, his heart races. The edges are worn and tattered where he’d opened it once, and he doesn’t need to open it again. He turns it in his fingers, thumb smoothing over the name of the bail bonds business.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demands.

He swallows. “It was Olivia,” he says, intending just to start.

“I know,” she says. “I saw the dates. You put our _house_ up for her bail, and you didn’t tell me?”

It stirs a rivulet of anger in him, maybe something defensive. “I wasn’t going to let her sit in jail. She was innocent. She wasn’t going to _run_. There was no risk involved!”

Kathy sits down in the chair next to him and her eyes are hard, maybe a little hurt. A lot tired. “No, Elliot, I know that. You see, that’s the point. I _know_ Olivia is your partner. I know what she’s done for this family. I know—have known from the first year you two were paired up—that even though you’re my husband, you two are a package deal. So, why then, would you think you have to go behind my back to do this?”

He swallows again, his gaze flickering away from her eyes. “There wasn’t time…”

She stares at him. “Bull,” she says, quietly. “Bull. Shit.” The kids are in the backyard playing, and she doesn’t swear unless she’s really pissed. “You had time to fill out the paperwork. You had time to wait for her to be processed, right? You had time to come home _every night_ of that whole investigation and look me in the eye, and _never_ say a word.”

He shakes his head and moves his lips, and he can’t seem to find his voice.

“So, you know,” she continues. “I get you and Olivia. I get the whole partnership thing and how she protects your back and how she means something to you. I might not always like it, but I _get_ it. So, again, it just makes it all the more confusing, and I have to ask _why_ you kept it a secret?”

He stares at her, and she stares back.

He can’t speak.

* * * * *

He thinks about it much later in the darkness, when Kathy is sleeping beside him and his alarm is set to go off in four hours.

Why didn’t he tell her?

He’d been a little crazy at the time, sure, his fear for Olivia overriding his common sense. She’s a big soft spot for him, and everyone knows it. He suspects that’s why he was given so much wiggle room with his behavior, because he’d been a real pain in the ass to everyone involved.

And it’s more than just a soft spot, of course. It is the thing that no one speaks about, least of all he and Olivia. As long as he is doing the right thing, he feels safe. And he _is_ doing the right thing. Even if he falters sometimes.

He hadn’t even hesitated when she’d been arrested. He’d laid his family’s house on the table in order to get her out, and he hadn’t lied to her when she’d asked if Kathy knew. It hadn’t been a risk. Not because he’d believed her innocent, but because even if she’d been guilty, she would not have run. She would not have run and sent him into ruin that way. And there is nothing that will make him believe he does not know her character.

And Kathy has always born the partnership with long-suffering patience.

So, why not tell her?

He’d known, in his gut, that keeping it a secret was wrong, but there’d been another feeling that had prevented him from calling. He’d felt it when he’d been in the car, driving to arrange the bond. He’d felt it when he’d picked up the phone to call Kathy and then hung up before dialing. He’d felt it when Olivia had looked at him through the bars of the city jail with an expression that asked, “What did you do?”

Guilt.

Why? She’s his partner. She’s his friend. She deserves his effort. He’d have done the same for any friend.

Except she isn’t _any_ friend. She’s Olivia.

And he knows that it’s different with her. Not in the way he bailed her out of jail, not in the way his logic works, but in his head and his heart, where his motivations lay.

And Kathy knows nothing if not how to read his heart…

* * * * *  
[]

The guy sitting across from her is nervous. And that makes _her_ nervous. No matter how many times it happens, how many times they act the same way, she still can’t quite get used to it.

His name is Michael, and this is the fourth Michael she’s ever dated.

“So,” he says into the silence, trying to smile at her. She gives him points for that. “Did you always want to, uh, work in, uh…” He doesn’t even want to say the word, and she sighs silently.

“The special victims unit?” she offers.

“Yeah,” he says, seeming to gain confidence now that she’s said it. “That.” He picks up his fork and his knife and works on his steak.

She takes a sip of her Pinot Noir and licks her lips. “Uhh… yes. I guess I did.”

He nods thoughtfully, even though she hasn’t said anything revealing or at all profound. He isn’t a bad looking guy. Dark hair that’s obviously teased, green eyes, solid build. She used to not tell them right away what she did for a living. It’s a one-way road to awkwardville. But these days she feels less patient. One-night stands are less exciting, and she prefers quality over quantity anyway. If a man can’t handle her job, then why waste time?

“I don’t even think I knew what a sex crime was until I was fourteen or fifteen,” he jokes, and he chews his steak with a smile on his face.

She gives him a faint smile in return and rubs the stem of the wine glass between her thumb and forefinger. She can tell him more now, if she wants. This is the opening to tell him exactly what inspired her drive into SVU.

 _My mother was raped and I’m the product of that rape, and I can’t seem to stop the crusade._

But she doesn’t know him nearly well enough for that. She’s more open about her past these days. It’s an ever-evolving battle toward forcing rape out of the shadows where women are told to be embarrassed and share the blame, and into the light of belief at face value. And justice. It is still a very personal thing though, and not something she brings out without a reason.

“Well, that’s probably a good thing,” she says. “A lot of kids can’t say the same.”

His head shoots up and he stares at her, and she sees the immediate guilt in his gaze. She wants to tell him she hadn’t been trying to make him feel guilty, but it always seems to be the way they interpret it. They want to joke it away, but for someone not in the job… the jokes tend to fall flat.

“I mean,” she amends. “That it’s great you’ve had a normal life. You seem really nice.” It feels as flat as his joke, even to her ears.

He smiles though, maybe eager to drop the subject, and she tries to think of another topic. They’d covered his job as a financial advisor over drinks while they’d waited for the table. Really, she thinks, maybe it’s time to stop dating guys who have a closet full of suits.

She takes another sip of her wine and asks, “So. Mets or Yankees?”

His broad grin tells her she’s on the right track.

Later, when they walk out to his car, the meter is expired. He slides a nervous glance in her direction and asks, “You’re not going to give me a ticket, are you?” Then he laughs, but the sound has a discomfort to it that makes her feel oddly exposed.

“That’s actually the Traffic division,” she points out. “They tend to frown on detectives earning their paycheck by giving out parking tickets.”

“Right,” he says, nodding, and she gives him a faint smile in return. They aren’t going to see each other again, she already knows.

And as much as she feels okay with that, because she doesn’t really feel any sparks, she still feels that lazy sense of disappointment.

“Well,” he says. “Then maybe you won’t mind if I speed a little bit on the way home either.”

She does laugh at that.

* * * * *

She’s late the next morning. Not for any particular reason, except she lingered too long over the paper and her tea. She’d been almost surprised to look up and remember she had to work.

When she walks in, Elliot is sitting at his desk staring at a folder, his fingers tapping away.

“Hey,” she calls.

He glances up and then does a double take, and she wonders how ragged she looks. “Bout time, Liv. I was just about to call and hassle you.”

She grins at that and heads for the coffee pot, stripping her coat and scarf off as she goes. The financial advisor hadn’t stayed late, but she’d been in a weird mood and hadn’t been able to sleep. She’s beat, and it’s barely nine o’clock in the morning. “Hit the snooze one too many times,” she replies.

“Yeah?” Munch interjects, leaning back in his chair until the bearings squeak. “Your hot date last night went well then, I assume?”

She winces inwardly at that and glances at Elliot. He’s now staring right at her, and the expression on his face is carefully neutral, but she knows. She hadn’t told him she’d had a date, and he doesn’t expect her to. But… things between them are always tangled.

“Nah,” she says, glancing at John. “It was a bust. No heat.”

“Ahhh.” John sighs regretfully. “I thought you’d have had enough heat for two, Olivia.”

She smacks him with her scarf as she passes, and he grins happily.

Elliot smiles tightly as she sits down across from him. “You have a date last night?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Yeah. First date.” She lifts one eyebrow as she meets his gaze. “Last date.”

He smiles absently, his eyes holding hers just a little too long, and then he glances back down at the folder on his desk.

It isn’t like they can’t handle these sorts of things. They talk. They tease each other. They don’t pine.

Well. Not much anyway.

But she likes to think they give each other room. Room to be jealous. Room to be flirtatious. Room to be wistful about what might have been.

She doesn’t date as much as she used to. When she was younger, and she’d first transferred into SVU, there’d been all the time in the world. She’d had energy to spare and ambition and nothing had seemed out of reach.

She and Elliot have always had electricity. Even then, when he’d been the most married he’d ever been, and she’d been the most single, the least attached to him. There had still been that flirtation, that teasing, that willingness to send sparks into the air.

But as the years went on, and the cases gained weight, it had changed, slowly but surely. She likes to write it off as inevitable, because, really, they’ve been partners for a long time now, longer than anyone else in the department. Bonding, secrets, understanding, coping methods: all of those come with the territory.

She eventually started choosing her dates according to which men she thought could handle Elliot. It isn’t an entirely irrational thing. She spends her days with him, often her nights, and even Kathy isn’t immune from the suspicion that rises. The resentment.

It’s easier for him, she thinks, because Kathy is invested already.

For her, she has to buy new, and she can’t offer any guarantees. A lot of men are too intimidated to handle Elliot as part of her life.

“Maybe you should date Munch,” Elliot says then, too quiet for anyone else to hear. “He’s been carrying a torch for years.”

She looks up at him, one eyebrow lifted wryly, and he grins slowly at her. One of those wide, teasing grins that is all blue eyes and dimples and kind of takes the wind right out of her.

“Well, he is a snappy dresser,” she retorts, smiling.

She has never been and never will be interested in John Munch romantically, and they both know that. “You know,” she says, more seriously now. “I have been thinking that maybe I should date another cop. Someone who gets it, you know?”

Elliot studies her now, a slight frown marring his expression, and she wonders what he’s thinking. “Anyone in mind?” he asks.

She shrugs. The department is full of good-looking single cops. “Nah,” she answers. “Just a thought.”

He holds her gaze for a while longer, and she can see him thinking about it, but that’s all he gives her.

“C’mon,” he finally says, standing and grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair. “Let’s get going.”

They have court that morning, the both of them, and the drive over is quiet. She thinks at first that maybe it’s that morning’s conversation. He’s never been immune from the jealousy. She hasn’t either, but he’s never been not married, only separated for a couple of brief years. Her jealousy these days is mostly wistful, and it is centered on him and all he has at home.

In some odd way, it is comforting for her to know he has that. It is nothing she would ever jeopardize.

For awhile, she thinks, she might have spent some time wishing for him. Things got heavy and he got separated, and it was easier to think about him than to date. She went the other way when she came back from Oregon. She dated a lot, and she could feel time racing, and she’d really thought that if she could just focus her gaze away from Elliot and onto someone else, that she’d be okay.

Really, Gitano fucked them up for _years_. Jesus Christ.

It is the way she handles pain. Keep acting like a normal human being, going through the motions, and eventually it will all work out. Eventually you’ll _feel_ normal again.

In a weird way, it has worked. Time has passed and she’s not as desperate to forget. She’s wiser, maybe, too. She has her own shit to work through.

As they get closer to the courthouse, she asks him how Kathy is, and suddenly he is very still. It is a loaded moment that has her thinking _Uh oh_ , right before he says she’s fine and then throws out some little comment about how she’d be better if he cleaned the garage.

But he avoids her gaze for a while after that, and Olivia isn’t sure how to take it.

* * * * *

Kathy stays distant from him, and while she isn’t blatantly hostile, he can sense… something. Things haven’t really been the same since their separation, and they’ve never been without problems, but this is different. He thought they’d worked it out, the way it was going to be. That he’d moved back in for her and the kids and because it was right, and he was he sort of man who honored his commitments.

Kathy used to appreciate that about him. But now…

“For God’s sake,” he says, one night after dinner when he’s helping her do dishes and she hasn’t spoken in nearly half an hour. “I was wrong, okay? But it was _Olivia_.”

She just turns to look at him with a disbelieving expression. “You know, her name isn’t some magical get-out-of-jail-free card, Elliot.”

“What, you think I’m fucking her?” He’s going for the shock value. She usually backs down when he gets going.

She thinks about that for a moment, but he feels like she’s patronizing him. “No,” she finally says. “But only because she’d never do that to me.”

That about makes him explode. That’s _serious_. And his heart starts racing and he feels both angry and yet scared, and he isn’t sure why. “I’ve never fucking cheated on you,” he growls. “I don’t get this sudden resentment, Kathy.”

She laughs at that. One of those sarcastic sort of laughs that says he’s being an idiot. “No,” she says. “You don’t. You never have, have you?”

He just stares at her, because she’s amazingly calm. He’s ready to start throwing dishes across the kitchen, and she just shakes her head and doesn’t even look mad.

She says, “And there’s nothing sudden or new about it, Elliot. Just because you haven’t noticed it before now doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t see it.”

And then she walks out, casually throwing her dishtowel over a chair.

He wants to barrel after her and roar his annoyance, but he stands where he is and he takes deep breaths and he feels hideously exposed, like he’s just been caught doing something bad or telling a secret he was supposed to keep.

He’d been assuming that this would blow over just like everything else does. Since Eli was born and he’d moved back in, their lives have revolved around the kids more than ever. They do less talking and, by extension, less arguing, and he knows theoretically that this is a sign of something less than healthy.

The truth is, he’d found it a relief. Maybe he’d even pushed it a few steps further, pulling himself out to even more of a distance, focusing on work.

It had just been so easy to coast.

* * * * *


	2. Impulse

[]

 

Cragen calls him after dinner a few days later and sends him out to meet Olivia at the apartment of a rape victim they’d investigated the month before.

Mary Dunn is going through a tough divorce, and she’d been raped a month ago by a masked man who’d forced a window on the fire escape. She’d sworn it was her estranged husband, Nick, even though she’d never seen his face. But the evidence had been thin, the DNA non-existent. He and Olivia had been pretty damn sure Nick was the perpetrator, but they’d had to release him after questioning when he’d asked for a lawyer immediately and refused to talk.

The case is still being investigated, although at this point both he and Olivia know it is likely never going to pan out. Mary had taken out a restraining order based on a former domestic violence call, and there they sat… waiting for something else to happen.

When he gets there, he sees Olivia already in the living room talking to an older woman with the same flaming red hair that Mary has. While Mary wore hers long and free, the older woman has it cut neatly short, and he guesses this is Mary’s mother. Olivia sees him and stands, and he feels a little breathless. She’d obviously had plans that the case had interrupted because she’s in a black, silky dress with her overcoat surrounding it, and when he gets close he can smell a hint of perfume.

He left denial behind a long time ago. It’s been twelve years with Olivia. He’s had plenty of time to get used to his feelings. Their partnership is… complicated. And that really is the best word for it. Maybe because it isn’t just a partnership, no matter how much they try to keep it there.

He’s always been willing to admit an attraction to her, but the heavier things… well, those are harder to compartmentalize.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey.” He glances pointedly at the dress. “Another hot date?”

She smiles faintly at him, her dark eyes holding his gaze. “It was too early to tell.”

He has a moment of distraction where he wonders if she’s dating a cop, like she’d said she was going to. She’d been joking, he knows, but he’s also thought about it over the years: who might make her happy. She’s dated cops before: Cassidy and Porter. Eckerson.

Another cop would work for her. Someone who understands the job and the partnership and who she can talk to at night. Maybe a guy who won’t put up with her bullshit when she wants to run, but who will give her some room to do what she’s gotta do.

Like he said, he’s thought about it…

He isn’t completely sure why his irritation and discomfort levels go up when she’s attracted to another cop, but they do. He can admit the jealousy, but… Jesus, he wants her to be happy. Just… shit. Not with someone who could take his place.

All the fucking bankers and the reporters and the boys in expensive suits? He knows they’ll never get her. Not the way he does. And there’s something comforting in that. Safe.

“You okay?” Olivia asks him. She’s peering at him with concern.

All of a sudden he feels like he did when Kathy and he were arguing over the dishes. Like he just let a secret out that he was supposed to keep.

“Yeah,” he says. “What do we got?”

“Mary’s missing,” she says.

His attention is suddenly very focused. “Missing?”

Liv nods. “Her mother…” She gestures toward the older woman. “Says Mary called when she left work at three to tell her that Nick had been waiting at her car and wanted to talk. She’d told him to buzz off, and got in and drove off, but she was scared and thought he was following her.”

“Shit.”

Olivia nods. “She was going to drive to Englewood right to the mother’s house, because she didn’t want to lead him to the babysitter’s house where the kids were. Her mother says at one point Mary let out a surprised exclamation, like “Oh my God” and then hung up, and they haven’t heard from her since.”

“They go looking?”

“Yeah. She has two sisters and most of the family went out and covered all the roads and gas stations between the bridge and the house. Nothing. She doesn’t pick up her phone.”

Mary’s mother appears in the doorway. “She should have been here hours ago.”

Liv glances at him. “The Jersey police have the plate number and car description. They’re keeping an eye out. They agree it sounds fishy. Enough to designate her high risk.”

He nods, and then they both sit with the mother a little bit more and ask a few more questions. It doesn’t sound like much has changed in the case. The relationship was pure poison at that point, and all Mary had wanted was to get out.

Elliot has a really bad feeling about the whole thing. Nick hadn’t talked much to them during the questioning of the rape or afterwards, but there’s a sixth sense about these guys, and both he and Liv had felt it. That winding suspicion that Nick was the sort of guy who owned women. They were possessions and nothing more, and how dare one of them leave him.

With the Jersey cops combing the roads for Mary’s car, they go back to Manhattan and try to find Nick. He doesn’t answer the door at his apartment, and the place is silent. They don’t have a search warrant yet, so they go back down to the car and sit for a while and watch.

Olivia calls in to see if anything’s come up, and when she hangs up she glances at him and shakes her head.

He sighs.

“You want to stick around or go?” she asks.

He glances around and shakes his head. “We’ve got people on her apartment, on her babysitter’s place, her office building, her mom’s. The Jersey cops are keeping an eye out for her car. I don’t know what else we can do at this point.” He glances at her in the darkness. “What about you?”

She shakes her head, absently, and worries her bottom lip with her teeth. “I don’t know,” she says softly. “Dunn is our best suspect right now, so we should stay right here, I guess. But…”

She sighs, and he shifts in his seat, the vinyl creaking. He waits for her to get her thoughts together.

She looks at him. “If he’s going to kill her, then those first few hours are the ones, El. If we don’t find her right now…”

He swallows and furrows his brows. She’s right. If Dunn is going to kill Mary, it’s the first few hours that are integral. He checks his watch, and it’s nearly eleven o’clock. If she’s been missing since three or so…

Olivia watches him check the time and then she looks away. “Shit,” she whispers.

He agrees.

* * * * *

Munch calls them with information. He’d called Nick’s few living relatives looking for him, but none of them have had any contact with him for weeks, and even when Nick does talk to them he doesn’t reveal anything personal. He is not close to anyone.

“That guy is locked up tighter than a gas chamber,” Olivia mutters as she flips her cell phone closed.

Elliot snorts. “Yeah, he’s a piece of work.”

“She had our cards,” Olivia says, softly. “Why didn’t she call if she was having problems?”

Elliot shrugs and stretches his legs as much as he can in the cramped car. “Guy like that? He was probably smooth as glass, and quiet, right up until he acted. She wouldn’t have known until it was too late.”

They sit quietly for a while, and the street is still as they watch over it. It’s still March, but they’re in the middle of a warm snap and most of the snow has melted, leaving the pavement dry and dirty. The grass on his lawn has even started to green up a bit. Spring is charging forward.

“Hey,” Olivia says, and she glances at him. “You okay? Anything going on?”

He looks at her, and he can see her mind working. She knows him, and he’s been quiet the past week or so, since Kathy tore him up for the bail bond. For a moment he wants to tell her. There are words, lots of them, bubbling up inside of him that want to spill out, and he’s suddenly not at _all_ sure exactly what would come out of him.

But he knows Olivia too, and telling her about Kathy’s anger or, God, about his guilt? Would only send her into a tailspin of her own. Olivia has always been fiercely protective of his family life. He has been thankful for it in the past, because in a way it serves as a boundary between them, firm and unyielding. It allows him a freedom to look at her and wonder without worrying that he will go too far, because she would never let him.

At the same time, he feels like something is changing, and he doesn’t want to brush it away. “Nah,” he finally says, slowly. “Kathy and I are just trying to work some stuff out.”

“Is it serious?”

In the past he might have talked about it with her, but the past few years, since the separation and Eli and his move back home, he has confided in her less often. Not because he doesn’t trust her, but because right before all that happened in his life, something broke wide open between them that they’ve never been able to really put back together again.

The tangled mass of feelings that make up their partnership, and their personal relationship, has a frightening weight to it and a destructive power too. It’s been much safer by far to bury all of it deep and keep it covered.

But the whole thing is still there, like a raised white scar between them.

“Yeah,” he says honestly, because he’s starting to feel like he’s sliding over a precipice, and if he is… He doesn’t want her to be surprised.

He feels her studying him, and he watches the still, dark street through the windshield and goes silent.

“You don’t want to talk about it,” she states.

“No,” he says, but he keeps his voice low and quiet.

“Okay,” she says, and she sighs and tilts her head forward to stretch her neck, and he glances at her and feels a wave of affection that is startling in its strength. She has always given him that space. To talk or not to talk. She presses him when he’s being obtuse, but she can tell when he needs room, and he’s amazed at how well she seems to get him.

He watches as she rubs wearily at the back of her neck, and his eyes are often drawn to that part of her. Where her delicacy as a woman is evident. She is one of the toughest detectives he knows, and he more than anyone knows exactly how much of a survivor she really is. She will go down swinging or she will not go down at all.

But there is also an odd vulnerability to her that sometimes catches him deep. After twelve years, they should be sick of each other. They’ve had some epic battles over the years when they raged at each other like competing storms. But instead of growing apart, they’ve grown together, and he feels distinctly like she’s grown inside of him.

He doesn’t want to think about the obvious name to this feeling, because he can’t afford to. He’s not allowed. And maybe it means he is weak, because he can’t put it right again. He can’t leave her.

So be it.

He is weak. He is fallen. He is all of those things and more, but he is doing the right thing. He is doing his duty as a man and a father at least, and he is resolute to the technicalities of his vows, if not the spirit.

God will just have to forgive him the rest.

* * * * *

Just before 2:00 a.m., Cragen calls them and the Jersey cops have found Nick Dunn’s pick-up in a park outside Hackensack. They start driving, but by the time they get there, there’s another call and a Jersey sheriff has just picked up Nick Dunn himself walking along the Palisades toward the bridge. So they switch and head for the substation where Dunn will be taken.

Olivia gives him a dubious raised eyebrow as they drive, and he shakes his head in agreement with her silent assessment. This is all looking bad.

At the substation, the sheriff lets them look in the holding room at Dunn while he fills them in. Dunn is about 5’10” and slim with short black hair and a beard, and he sits calmly, waiting, as they watch him through two-way glass.

“Picked him up on the Palisades, hitch-hiking. He didn’t have any shoes on,” the sheriff says. “And his jeans were soaked up to mid-thigh.”

Elliot glances in at Dunn, and he is, indeed, shoeless and wearing muddy socks. His jeans are dark to above the knee and when he folds his arms across his chest, long red scratches are visible on his forearms.

“Well,” Elliot says, mordantly. “Where do you think he’s been? Out hiding a body?”

Olivia looks right at him, jaw tight, and she shakes her head in a muted anger at Dunn. “It’s like he doesn’t even care that we know,” she says.

“Good. Maybe he’ll be eager to talk,” Elliot answers.

“Already invoked his lawyer,” the sheriff says, and Elliot feels that frustrating pressure in his chest. He glances at Olivia, and she reflects it right back at him. Shit.

She’s right though. It is as if Dunn doesn’t care that they know. He’s stayed silent throughout the entire ordeal, from the rape to the restraining order to this, and Elliot has no doubt he’ll continue to stay that way. He won’t be one of those killers who is tricked into talking. He won’t give them some little clue or think he can talk them out of their suspicion. He’ll just… stay silent and let them figure it out. And if they do, he’ll just go to prison and stay silent there too. Brimming in the satisfaction of a job well done.

He sits like a statue. Not a twitch, not a nervous tapping foot or swinging knee. He stares straight ahead and he barely breathes, and he is nothing like the suspects they usually have in their interview rooms.

“Fuck,” Elliot swears, and next to him Olivia bumps him slightly with her shoulder. It’s deliberate, and it’s commiseration, and he appreciates it.

“What did he tell you before you got here?” Olivia asks the sheriff.

“Said he was stranded by friends in some bar in Englewood and didn’t have any money, so he was walking home.”

“Walking back to Manhattan?” Elliot scoffs.

The sheriff shrugs with a smirk. “Yeah, I know.”

“What happened to his shoes?”

“Said he lost them in some mud.”

She rolls her eyes. “And the bar he was at?”

“Doesn’t remember.”

“Of course he doesn’t,” she says, wryly.

“He was playing up the drunk aspect for a while, but he looks okay now.”

“Did you smell anything on him?”

“Not anything strong, but yeah, there was something there. Sweet like hard liquor. When I asked him about Mary, he said he didn’t know anything about her and maybe she just ran off with another man. That she never did like the responsibility of marriage and kids.”

Utter bullshit. Elliot spent time with Mary, working her case, and her kids were everything to her. He didn’t even have to be a father to see that in her.

There isn’t much else, and when Dunn’s lawyer gets there they all sit down to talk about Mary. All they get is a repeat of what they got from the sheriff. Dunn refuses to talk, and the lawyer simply parrots the original statement.

“He was drunk,” the lawyer says. “He doesn’t remember.”

“We need the names of the friends who left you in the bar,” Elliot orders.

Dunn and the lawyer confer for a moment and then the lawyer says, “He doesn’t remember.”

Olivia’s gaze flickers to him in utter exasperation, and he has to swallow his anger before he dives across the table and rips Dunn’s jaw open himself.

“You killed her,” he finally says to Dunn, leaning over the table to get in his face. “We know you killed her and you aren’t getting away with it. As soon as we find a body, you’re going to prison. Got that?”

Dunn looks him right in the eyes and the corner of his mouth lifts in a cold smirk. He says nothing.

Elliot feels the first scary tendrils of his rage rising up, and Olivia grabs him by the arm and drags him out before he goes completely crazy on the guy.

“Okay,” she says, when they’re back in the viewing room and they’re alone. “We aren’t getting anything else from him. Let’s just arrest him and work the case.”

He nods. The evidence is purely circumstantial at this point, but it’s pretty obvious. Cragen finally shows up and works with the Jersey police to coordinate the case. There’s a good chance the actual murder, if there really was one, was committed in New Jersey, so the arrest may be out of their hands.

“Go home,” Cragen orders them. “You’ve been up all night and nothing else is going to happen right away. Come back after lunch and we’ll get it straightened out.”

So they go.

When they pull up outside of Olivia’s apartment building, the sky is starting to lighten with dawn. Olivia doesn’t get out right away, and he turns the engine off, always an indication that he wants to talk. She sighs heavily and she sounds tired, and she leans back in the seat and he can feel her brain turning the night over and over.

“He didn’t think this out at all,” Elliot says. “He just did it. I don’t think he cares that he was caught. He’s just glad she’s dead.”

“It’s like he’s made out of ice,” she says, quietly. “No emotion. No reaction at all. It’s like he’s just waiting.”

“Sociopath,” he says.

She shakes her head almost absently. “Or something worse.”

He leans his head back against the seat and says, “I don’t think she ever had a chance, Olivia. It wouldn’t have mattered if we’d shadowed her 24/7, he’d have found a way.”

“Think there’s a chance she just took off?”

He meets her gaze. “No. No chance at all.”

Olivia nods, slowly and somberly. Then she yawns. “Shit, I’m so tired, but I don’t know if I’ll even be able to sleep.”

He knows the feeling. There’s too much running around in his brain. “Call me if you can’t. We’ll talk it out.”

She gives him a teasing smirk. “You’ll be dead to the world. Won’t even hear the phone.”

He smiles. “I’ll turn up the volume.”

She shakes her head, and he knows she won’t call. She won’t want to interrupt his sleep. “I’ll just have a shot of whiskey and watch a morning talk show. I’ll be out like a light.”

He smiles again at that, and feels a strange ache. What he wants, more than anything at that moment, is to follow her up, drink her whiskey and settle himself down in her living room to get this case out of his head. When they’re planning things out, he feels like he’s doing something productive. It keeps the frustration from building up in his gut.

He tries not to notice the way her eyes look sleepy and the way her hair is sort of messy. She’s looked that way a lot over the years, it shouldn’t be anything new. Certainly not anything special. But… it’s just part of that vulnerability that draws him to her.

“Go home,” she says to him, as she opens the door. “See your family.”

He feels a flash of guilt at that. That the last thing he wants to do at this moment is walk into his own house and talk to his wife. “Call,” he reminds her as she climbs out. “If you can’t sleep.”

She just gives him a smile and then disappears into the front door of her apartment building.

He starts the car and drives.

* * * * *

She collapses on her sofa as soon as she closes her apartment door behind her. Kicking off her shoes feels amazing, and she closes her eyes for a few moments as her whole body relaxes.

Eventually Mary Dunn shows up in her brain again, and she opens her eyes and stares at her living room window. The blinds are still open since she never made it home last night, and the light is starting to pour in.

Yesterday morning, Mary Dunn got up and went to work like usual. This morning there was every possibility that she was lying dead somewhere in New Jersey. Olivia thinks about Nick and his muddy socks and wet jeans and she wonders if Mary is somewhere wet and cold, or if she’s floating in a river, maybe even the Hudson.

She sighs.

She gets up and pours herself a bowl of cereal. She has just enough milk in the fridge to cover it. All the coffee last night has made her stomach feel tender, and she eats slowly in silence. Her mind is too tangled to focus on TV.

When she’s changed out of her work clothes and she’s showered, she does pour a nip of the whiskey out. She’s had the same bottle for six months. She doesn’t use it much. She is too aware of her own proclivities from her mother’s disease. Maybe she shouldn’t drink at all, but she’s always been good at self-discipline. She is also fifty percent her father, and she doesn’t think he was an alcoholic, rapist tendencies notwithstanding. Simon certainly hadn’t mentioned it.

She realizes she’s heading into dangerous territory. Something that always happens when a case like this breaks. She needs a respite from the stress and her mind takes her right into the past and berates her for…well, everything.

Her cell phone rings as she’s finishing the whiskey, and when she picks it up she sees Elliot’s name. She rolls her eyes, but her lips turn up at the corners. “Hello,” she says, a little wryly, when she answers.

“So, I was thinking,” he says, not bothering to identify himself. “We should go talk to Mary’s co-workers this afternoon. See if they saw anything.”

“Where are you?”

“Just got off the bridge. Stopped to get an Egg McMuffin.”

She hears him chewing. She rolls her eyes again, but the smile hasn’t left her face, and she thinks that, really, after twelve years she shouldn’t still find his idiosyncrasies charming. And to be fair, there are a good number of them she finds annoying, but in general he still makes her smile more days than not, and that’s a little impressive. “Okay,” she finally says. “Good plan. If someone saw the confrontation at her car, we’ll need that. It’s as good a place as any to start.”

“Been listening to the scanner,” he says. “Nothing on a body found yet.”

“He didn’t have that long to get rid of it,” she says. “She has to be close by.”

Elliot makes a slight sound of disagreement. “She was off work at 3, probably taken about 3:45 or 4, and Nick was picked up by that sheriff at 2:30. That’s a good 10 hours he had to kill her, dispose of her and start walking home.”

He’s right, and Olivia rubs wearily at her forehead. “Yeah,” she says. “That’s going to be a nice-sized search area.”

“We’ll find her,” Elliot says.

“And if we don’t?”

He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “Murderers have been convicted without a body before. There’s precedent.”

“We have to find everything, El. Every little piece of inconsequential, circumstantial evidence.”

“Yeah,” he agrees quietly.

The murder itself will not even be their case if it’s determined it likely happened in New Jersey, but she knows Elliot shares her responsibility in the case. Mary was theirs before she disappeared, and there will be a piece of them missing right along with her until she’s put to rest.

“Get home and get some sleep,” she orders him.

He pauses then. She hears him shift and take a breath, and for a moment it feels like he’s going to say something important. And then he says, “Yeah, okay.”

She furrows her brow, because she cannot shake the red flags that are telling her something is wrong with him, and she wants to push and push until he tells her. But she knows him, and his calmness over the situation, whatever it is, tells her it’s something serious but his indication that he didn’t want to talk about it was just as serious. She needs to give him room to work it out first, before she barges in and demands to know details.

“El,” she finally says, deciding she has to say something. “Whatever it is, you know you can talk to me, right? No judgments.”

“I know.”

“Okay,” she says, not satisfied, but realizing she has no choice.

“See you this afternoon,” he says.

“Bye.”

When she hangs up, she turns the cell phone in her fingers and stares down at it for a few minutes in silent contemplation. This has been a weird year for them. She finally feels like they’ve gotten back to their pre-Gitano state, after a few years of struggling. With each other and with their feelings.

She feels, finally, like they’re closer than ever. More stable.

But are they really?

She’s felt much more willing to walk away from him at the end of the day the past two years. More able to put her feelings away and dive into her own life. Maybe even because she knows he’s at home, safe and married and with the family he loves.

But he’s been weirdly attentive to their partnership the past year. Like it’s a possession he has to lock down and protect, lest it be spirited away out from under him.

Maybe some of that is her fault. She’s been pushy about getting him home at the end of each day, about keeping him out of harm’s way if she can, and she’s not really sure why. Because he doesn’t always think of himself as someone worth saving, maybe. Because he doesn’t always realize how important he really is to his kids. And if he won’t save himself, then she’ll do it for him. For his family.

But as she lies down and pulls the sheet over her to try to sleep, she also thinks that maybe after twelve years she can admit that maybe she feels a little guilty too. She and Elliot have never slept together. They’ve never even had a moment where she thought they were going to kiss.

But it wasn’t—isn’t—for lack of desire.

And in some religions that’s as good a sin as any other.

* * * * *


	3. Theory

When she meets him six hours later, he’s freshly shaven and neatly put back into a suit, but she can see exhaustion behind his eyes and she wonders how much he really slept. He stops at the soda machine on the way out and buys them both a can of caffeine, and although she’s cut way down she takes it gratefully.

“I’m so sick of winter,” he complains, as they climb into the car and he wipes uselessly at the brush of road salt across his coat. “Spring can’t come fast enough.”

It’s the time of year when the weather gets a little fickle. They get the occasional storm, but the snow melts quickly and the next day dawns warm. She turns the heat on and it blasts cold air at them for awhile. She wonders if the earth is still too frozen to dig a grave, or if the warm weather has loosened it up enough to make it useful.

“Cragen says Nick still isn’t talking,” she says.

“He won’t,” Elliot says as they hit the street. “I know assholes like him.”

They drive to Mary’s office building and her co-workers are sincerely worried and eager to help. It makes Olivia feel worse in some ways. That a fuck like Nick can just wipe her off the face of the earth. She and Elliot split up so they can cover more territory.

“He looked mad when we found him waiting at her car,” one of the friends says. “I mean, he wasn’t yelling or anything, she says he never does. He’s always really quiet and then he makes you pay later.”

“How so?” Olivia asks.

The friend shrugs. “I don’t know. Mary would never explain any further than that. I think she was sort of embarrassed that she’d stayed so long with him, so she’d kind of make vague comments like that and then laugh them off.”

 _Oh, Mary_ , Olivia thinks, sighing.

She gets a lot of vague hearsay from all of them, and a few people saw Nick get into his pick-up after Mary drove off and start after her, but no one followed them down the street. She gets their names and numbers and then heads over to where Elliot is still talking to Mary’s boss.

As she approaches, he meets her gaze and shakes his head slightly. They ask the boss to call them if anything comes up and then get into the elevator and he looks at her. “One of the guys says he was at Mary’s apartment for a party once, before the divorce, and he and Nick were talking about hunting. Nick told him he knew a place where you could hide a body and it would never be found.”

Olivia lifts her brows. “Um, wow.”

“Yeah. Guy was a little freaked. He says he tried to joke about it, but Nick seemed completely serious and wouldn’t tell him where it was. So he made an excuse and got out of there.”

“Maybe he’s put more planning into this than we thought.”

Elliot shrugs. “I guess he came prepared. She could take him back or she could disappear. Period.”

Olivia sighs.

They drive back to the One Six and Cragen fills them in on the rest. They just found Mary’s car in a parking ramp about 4 miles from the Palisades where Nick was picked up. The Jersey forensics unit was towing it back to the lab. They’d arrested Dunn and were charging him with murder, and the case would move ahead in New Jersey.

“We still have to put her rape case to rest, so go ahead and keep asking questions,” Cragen says. “But you’ll have to send anything you find to Jersey.”

“No problem,” Elliot says.

And after that there isn’t much to do except talk to Jersey and try to stay on the same page.

* * * * *

Elliot starts to coast again.

They don’t find Mary’s body. Not in one week, and not in two. Nick Dunn doesn’t break under questioning, not even when charges are filed. Not even when Mary’s family okays a deal in trade for the body’s location.

“Proving murder without a body is difficult,” Donnelly tells them. “But it can be done.”

It’s not their case anymore, so they have to wait by the sidelines and stay busy with their own work. Of which there is plenty.

A few weeks before the trial is set to begin, the Jersey cops organize a massive search of some of the more logical parks, public hunting lands and farmlands. He and Olivia volunteer to search the original park where Dunn’s truck was found. It’s already been searched several times, but new eyes never hurt.

He sleeps late on that early-April Saturday before the search, and when he gets up everyone except Kathy is out of the house. She’s in the basement doing laundry, and he doesn’t bother yelling down to her. They’ve been distant since the arguments over Olivia’s bail bond, and it’s been easy to forget about it.

He makes a couple of eggs and some toast while he texts Liv and tells her when he’ll pick her up. Then he throws a couple of power bars in his jacket pocket. He has no doubt she’ll climb into his car full on coffee or tea and nothing else, and an hour or two into the search he can force a snack on her.

They might as well get dinner afterwards too, depending on if they find anything. Kathy’s taking the kids to her mother’s this afternoon and he’ll be winging it.

He’s chewing the last of his toast when Kathy appears in the kitchen doorway. She leans against the wall and watches him, and there is a sudden tension in the air. He knows her, and she is trying to figure out how to tell him something.

“What?” he demands, irritated.

“I want to talk,” she says.

He takes a long drink of his orange juice and then says, “I’ve got that search this morning. I’m picking up Olivia in an hour.”

Her anger bursts quickly out. “For God’s sake, Elliot, you’ve barely been home the past three months, and when you are here you take Dickie off to play basketball at the gym and don’t come home until dinner. What am I supposed to do, make an appointment?” She’s rarely quick to anger, and he realizes this has been simmering a lot longer than he’d thought.

He feels it then, that deep sense of foreboding and resignation. Expectation. Maybe he’d known this couldn’t go on forever. That they were broken and she was going to get sick of it.

He pours some more juice into his glass as his mouth runs dry. “Okay,” he says. If he’s late, Liv will understand.

Kathy sits carefully down across the table from him. She looks at him. “I think we should separate again. Actually…” She takes a deep breath. “I want a divorce.”

He feels that tightness in his chest, but it feels oddly relieving. “I told you,” he says. “There wasn’t any danger with that bond, Kathy. It was Olivia. She never would have run and put our house at risk.”

She stares at him and then shakes her head. “And you still aren’t getting it, are you?”

“Getting what?” The annoyance is building in him.

“I don’t give a crap about that stupid bail bond, Elliot! It’s everything else. It’s that you didn’t tell me about it. It’s that I never should have asked you to move back in to begin with, because we never had a chance.”

He stares at her. “What are you talking about?”

She stares back. “You and Olivia.”

It’s like every nerve in his body freezes up. He swallows. “Me and Olivia what, Kathy?”

She looks right at him, and she is not afraid of him at all. Not at all. “I don’t know what it is, Elliot, but I know it’s more than friendship, and I know it’s not going away.”

“Olivia and I have never touched each other,” he grinds out.

She stares at him for a long time before saying, “That’s not enough.”

He’s angry. “I have never slept with Olivia!” he says vehemently. “Goddamn it. I take care of you and this family, and I don’t run around behind your back!”

“I’m tired of just being your goddamn _duty_ ,” she says, and her voice is loud. “Yes, great, you and Olivia have managed to resist having sex, and you come home and stay distant and you call Olivia when you need to talk, and you hand over your paycheck every other week, and what? I’m supposed to just shut up and be happy?”

“What do you want from me?” he demands. Jesus. She’s gone nuts.

“I want you to admit it!” She is finally shouting at him. Furious. “I want you to recognize that I’m not crazy! I’m not just some hysterical housewife who’s jealous, Elliot! This has been years, and I’m done with it!”

“Kathy, I did not…”

She interrupts. “I want you to admit that you’re in love with Olivia!”

He stares at her, and his chest feels like it’s filled with cement. Heavy and hard. His mouth is dry, and he feels… terrified. “I’m not…” he says, and he’s not finished with that sentence but he can’t continue. He knows logically what should come after those words. That he should deny it like it’s ridiculous. But the words feel alien on his tongue, and the whole idea of what she’s saying is whirling in his mind. “I’m not…” He can’t say the whole thing. He can’t… _I’m not._

“I don’t want to be your goddamned sacrifice,” she growls. “Not anymore. I deserve better than that!”

He is angry at her. He is angry that she is dragging Olivia into this. He is angry that she is being so insistent. He is angry because… it feels like she is throwing something in his face that they’d agreed to never speak of, and it feels… unfair. And revealing. And weak. “You’re being ridiculous!” He glares. “Are you fucking delusional?”

She shakes her head and he can see how close she is to crying. Not her sad crying, but her angry, frustrated crying. “No,” she says. “I’m really, really not. You are. You’re the delusional one if you think nobody sees. You’re the delusional one if you think having sex is the only way you can be unfaithful. You’re the crazy, stubborn, _selfish_ bastard if you think this should be enough for me. That I should be perfectly content with a husband who’s in love with someone else and yet eases his own ego by doing his ‘duty’.”

“We have five kids!”

“And we’ll always have those five kids,” she says. “But they’ll be fine. It’s _me_ who is not fine!”

He stares at her, and he doesn’t want to say anything else. He’s angry and he’s scared and he wants to just stand up and walk out and tell her that, yeah, maybe it is for the best, because goddamn it, he doesn’t need this shit.

“It doesn’t matter if you admit it or not,” she says, quieter now. More confident. “I want a divorce. You’re going to give it to me. You owe me.”

He glares at her, but she knows when he’s had enough, and she gets up and walks out of the room, and he hears the bedroom door close upstairs and the lock click into place.

He sits there for a moment and swallows the fear down again and again. He’s not even sure what he’s so terrified of. He and Kathy have been down Divorce Road before, and the picture swirling in his mind isn’t of a future without Kathy. It is Olivia’s dark eyes, glittery in their depth, as she stands there, pointing her gun at Gitano. Her eyes, wet with her fear that are focused on him.

 _I want you to admit that you’re in love with Olivia!_

After a while, he gets up and grabs his jacket and gets into the car. And he drives to Olivia’s.

* * * * *

She’s waiting for him on her front step, and when he pulls over she climbs into the car and she has a huge paper cup of coffee from the place down the street, and he’s willing to bet she hasn’t eaten a thing yet, just like he’d thought.

“Hey,” she says, as she pulls her seatbelt across and shifts around until she’s comfortable. “You’re late.”

“Sorry,” he says, watching her. She’s wearing jeans and a pair of hiking boots and an old olive drab Army field jacket with a black T-shirt underneath and she looks fantastic. Always so effortless. “I should have called.”

She shrugs and takes a sip of her coffee. “It’s alright.” When the car doesn’t move, she glances over at him and offers him a faint smile, and suddenly he wants to tell her.

He just wants to let it all spill out and see what she says. _Kathy thinks I’m in love with you and she wants a divorce and I’m so confused and what do you think?_

But he hasn’t even worked it out in his own head yet, and he knows Olivia will be hurt to think she, in any part, is the cause of his marriage breaking up. There is a time and place for everything, but this isn’t it.

He drives.

She chats on the way, and he’s glad. Kathy’s words are thundering around in his brain and he can’t stop the suffocating feeling he gets every time he thinks about the entire thing. The idea of becoming a weekend dad is abhorrent to him, but as he thinks about it, he has to admit to a painful truth. He doesn’t really spend a whole lot of time during the week with his kids anyway. He’s always working. There are times he’d even avoided going home, because he hadn’t wanted to deal with Kathy. And that… is really shitty.

The idea of getting divorced is disheartening, but… He knows she’s right in some ways. They never should have moved back in together after Eli was conceived. It hasn’t been the same since the separation. Since before, really.

Jesus, they were kids when they got married. Young and stupid and already with a kid of their own on the way. He’s well on his way to 50 now, and they just aren’t the same people they were when they were 20. Neither of them.

He’s not as bothered by the idea as he had been the first time. Maybe he’s been growing used to it all along. At the same time, he feels that dark sinking feeling of failure. He’d been so determined that he’d be better than his parents. That all he had to do was sacrifice, and everyone would be happy.

It’s disheartening and complicated.

He’d been overwhelmed after Gitano, when he and Olivia had been sitting in the hospital. When their feelings had been so close to the surface. All he could see were the negatives. That he was losing his kids (even though he hadn’t been) and he was fucking up the job and it felt like everything he touched turned to shit. And he’d been angry. Angry that she’d made him feel something for her. Something complicated and messy and so incredibly deep that it scraped him raw to the bone.

 _I don’t want to wreck that. I couldn’t take it._

In fear, he’d turned to anger, and even though he’d phrased it gently, and he’d meant it at the time, it had been about self-preservation. When she’d turned around and left him too…

It’s taken them a long time to battle back from that, and he doesn’t even see it on her face anymore. It wasn’t until Porter came back and put a bullet into the man holding her hostage that he’d seen it back in her eyes.

They are both very good at compartmentalizing the things between them.

He realizes it’s been silent in the car for a good long while then, and when he glances at Olivia she is staring out the window.

“Sorry,” he says. “Guess I’m a little tired.”

She gives him a wry, sideways grin and hands him her coffee cup. He smiles then and takes it from her and takes several big, sugary sweet swallows.

“You sure you don’t want to talk about it?” she asks, quietly.

He pauses then. Usually when he’s facing something this tough, he clams up and doesn’t talk to anyone. But for some reason he wants to tell her. He wants to blurt it all out and wants to know what she thinks. And he’s not sure _why_. What does he think she’s going to say? What does he _want_ her to say? That Kathy is wrong and the whole idea is ridiculous?

That Kathy is right?

That she, Olivia, feels the same?

 _The same._ That shakes him a bit. He glances at her and hands her coffee back to her, and she doesn’t push it, and that big tightness in his chest grows a bit, like something is clawing to get out. “Let’s just focus on the search,” he says, and his voice sounds a little hoarse but steady.

When they get to the park, two Jersey sheriffs have the place blocked off. It’s closed for the day, and they drive into the organization area. The park is a wildlife refuge as well, and as he climbs out of the car and stretches, he can see a line of people in the distance; volunteers walking an arm’s length apart across a huge marshy area. Most of them carry walking sticks to poke around in the mud and through the long, dead grass, and they look like a skirmish line from old Civil War movies.

He takes two cut-off, wooden broomsticks from the trunk of his car. They’ve been involved in enough searches to have made their own.

One of the captains checks them in and then hands them a map of the roughly four miles of walking trails in the park. One one-mile loop is outlined in bright green, and the captain tells them to take their time and gives them a radio so they can keep in touch.

Elliot glances at Olivia, and she shrugs with a smile. “Nice day for a walk,” she says.

It’s cool on that early-April morning, but not cold. Cloudy too, but with big white clouds, and when the sun shines briefly between them the air gets warm and smells like spring. They grab a bottle of water from a table in the parking lot and walk toward the trail, and Elliot tries to focus on the job now, and not on Kathy’s words.

The walking path is at least five feet wide, and they each take a side, walking slowly along the far edges. He uses his boots and the stick to push aside the foliage. It’s not as thick as it would have been in summer, but decaying leaves are now covering a lot of the ground. In places where the leaves look disturbed, they poke the sticks right in and press, trying to see how compacted the dirt is. If something has recently been buried.

For a public wildlife area it’s remarkably clean of garbage, and he wonders if they have a voluntary trash pick-up day and if they’ve had one since Mary’s disappearance. He’s sure the Jersey cops would have thought of it already, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

The place has already been searched once, although not in as much depth as this. Still, there isn’t much to find: a degraded foam cup that’s obviously been there a long time, the occasional food wrapper.

They’re focused on the search and don’t talk much, and he listens absently to the birds singing and the occasional radio chatter between searchers.

“I feel responsible for this girl,” Olivia says when they stop on the path for a minute and open their bottles of water. “Like we let her down.”

He screws the cap back on his bottle and sighs. “We did what we could,” he says, but he knows it’s little consolation, because he feels the same way. That they should have known something was up. They should have done _more_. They can’t keep every victim safe, and both of them know that, but it doesn’t make them feel any better when the worst happens.

Olivia shakes her head and glances around. “I know she has to be dead, but sometimes I still wonder…”

He knows. He does too. He watches Olivia as her eyes scan the ground all around them. “She never would have left those kids,” he says.

She nods slightly and turns her head, and she has her hair tied back so he can see the back of her neck, and why does it always make his mouth run dry to see that? He knows exactly how it feels to put his hand there; how wide he has to stretch his fingers (not wide) and how firmly he can grip before her muscles tense. How the hair is soft there and whisper-thin and the firm bump of her vertebrae will press into his palm.

Jesus, he thinks. _Jesus._ And he feels Kathy’s accusation like a weight on his chest.

They go back to searching, and he stares down at the dead leaves and the thick brush and he pokes around with his stick and he thinks that it’s not like this is a new realization for him. It’s not like he’s never admitted that he’s attracted to Olivia. For God’s sake, that whole thing with Gitano was like a shot between them.

Feelings were _there_ , they existed. He just… It simply wasn’t an option.

It feels weird now and his heart is racing a bit, and he’s thinking over the entirety of their twelve years together, and now he sees how _long_ it’s been there with him. How he’s always had some sort of feelings for her.

He’d never really brought them out into the light and brushed them off and thought about them. Not in any real way.

“El,” Olivia calls.

When he looks up, she’s standing and pointing to a spot a few paces behind him and she’s frowning and looking at him like she does whenever he loses his temper and punches something. He glances back and down and there’s a white slip of paper fluttering there, caught in the leaves. He swallows and tightens up inside, and he’d been so caught up in his thoughts that he’d cruised right by without seeing it.

Olivia steps over and kneels down and puts a latex glove on and picks it up gingerly by the corner. He stares down at her. “A receipt,” she says, glancing up. “From yesterday.”

He breathes out in relief, and she crumples the paper and slips it into her pocket, and then she glances down the path along his route and he can see that she’s searching and wondering if he’s missed anything else, and he’s really fucking this up. He can’t keep it in anymore.

“Kathy wants a separation again,” he says, bluntly.

Olivia jerks her head up and stares at him, surprised. He waits. He doesn’t mention the talk of divorce or the part about her. He thinks that really, he’s going to need some time for that.

“Shit,” she exclaims, but softly.

He can’t help the small smile. It’s partly relief that it’s out, partly amusement at her commiserating reaction.

She stands and she puts her hand on his arm and she shakes her head in confusion and says, “Well… is there something you can do? I just… when did she tell you this?”

“This morning,” he says. “But she’s been telegraphing it for weeks. I was just hoping it would blow over.”

She sighs, and lifts her brows, and he can see that she’s now making sense of his distance over the past month. “Is she sure?” she asks.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. To be honest, I’m kind of… confused right now. I need some time to think it through.”

“Yeah,” she says, agreeing. “Right. I just… I thought you two were doing okay now. Is it the job?”

He looks away from her at that, not sure how to answer her. This isn’t the right time, he thinks, to tell her about Kathy’s accusations. His mouth is suddenly dry at the thought, and his gut tightens up painfully. “The job is definitely a part of it,” he answers finally. “But we’ve barely discussed it, really. I just… I need some time, okay?”

“Okay.” She just looks at him then, and he takes a few deep breaths and he feels more relaxed somehow.

He glances at his watch and it’s nearly 3 o’clock, and he says, “Let’s take a break.”

There’s a log about forty feet down the trail, and they walk towards it, searching the weeds as they go. He pokes at the log to make sure it’s not rotten and then he sinks down and takes his water bottle out. Olivia sits beside him and says, “Shit. I should have eaten breakfast.”

He huffs out a laugh at that, and feels a wave of warm affection, because she is trying to act normal for him and because he knows her so well. He likes that he knows her so well. That he can predict so many things about her, and yet there is a part of her that is like a deep, dark lake, and he has only scratched the surface.

He pulls one of the power bars from his pocket and hands it to her.

“Nah, El, that’s your snack. I’ll eat later,” she insists.

He pulls the second one out too and holds it up, proving that he has his own.

She takes the offered bar with an almost embarrassed smirk. “I think we’ve been partners too long,” she mutters.

He snorts and unwraps his bar. It’s silent for a while then, and he listens to the birds and the sound of the bare tree branches as they click together in the wind. In the distance they can hear occasional raised voices of the other searchers, and it feels peaceful here.

“I’m sorry,” Olivia says, quietly. “About Kathy.”

He chews and looks at his boots and finally says, “It’s okay. I’m, uh…” He trails off, trying to figure out what he wants to say. “I’m in a different place than last time,” he finishes.

She nods slowly, as if she’s agreeing, and he feels better for having let her know what’s going on, but still conflicted and weighed down with the parts she doesn’t know.

“Can I do anything?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says, smiling faintly, wanting to change the mood. “You can buy me dinner. I don’t want to go home and Kathy took the kids to her parents’ place anyway.”

She smirks at that and meets his gaze, and he’s always a little surprised at the depth of her dark eyes. “Fine. But we’re not getting pizza.”

He shrugs his acquiescence. He doesn’t care what they eat as long as he doesn’t have to go home and she’ll hang around with him.

They walk the rest of the trail at a slow pace, and he forces the thoughts about Kathy and Olivia out of his head so he can concentrate. It still takes several long hours and they don’t find anything beyond the receipt and a few discarded soda cans. By the time they’re finished it’s nearing 6 o’clock and the coming darkness is starting to impede their vision along the tree-shaded path.

Most of the civilian volunteers who made up the search lines in the marshes are gone, and they spend another hour in the parking lot talking to a few of the Jersey cops connected to the case. The press has picked up the story and is sensationalizing it, causing grief and a flood of tips and sightings of Mary to pour into the department. It’s both a good and a bad thing. More volunteers, more tips, but more hours wasted and more red herrings to chase down before they can find the truth.

“Trial is going ahead in three weeks whether we find anything or not,” one of the captains tells them. “The DA thinks we can convict without a body, but we’d rather have it.”

“Yeah,” Elliot says. “I hear you.”

“Just call if you need eyes,” Olivia tells him. “She still feels like our case. We want to find her. We’ll help in any search.”

“Thanks,” the captain says, soberly. “I’ll do that.” And then he walks away.

Elliot follows Olivia to the car and they slide in and shut the doors and sit there for a moment. “Where the hell did that asshole stash her?” he wonders.

Olivia just shakes her head and looks frustrated. “If he’s a hunter he probably knows a hundred nooks and crannies where things can just disappear.”

“We have to find her,” he says, insistently, and it’s a horrible, tight feeling in his gut. “If we don’t, it’ll be as good as losing to that murdering bastard.”

Olivia exhales and nods and doesn’t try to soothe him. He loves that about her. That they can feel angry and frustrated and the same. “I can’t stand the thought of him, even sitting in prison for the rest of his life, thinking he’s won and being the only person on Earth who knows where Mary is.”

“Me either.”

They look at each other, and he has to resist the urge to slide his hand onto the back of her neck. His palm itches to feel the delicate corded muscle and the warmth trapped by the tied swath of hair hanging just below her shoulders. He takes a deep breath, feeling a little startled. He’s not sure if it’s Kathy’s words that have made him so self-aware, or if it’s something he’s always felt, just pushed away.

Maybe both.

“Thai Kitchen?” he suggests, because it’s not pizza, and he knows she likes the chicken pad thai.

She nods. “Sure.”

So he drives.

* * * * *


	4. Probabilities

Thai Kitchen is nearly empty when they get there. It does a brisk lunch business and then empties out for dinner on the weekends, when people get ready for dates and go somewhere more expensive, with atmosphere.

They both get the pad thai and an iced tea and they take a booth in the back where it’s less brightly lit.

“No hot date this weekend, huh?” he asks as they both dig in.

She rolls her eyes at him. “You have a completely exaggerated idea of my personal life, Stabler.”

He grins because he likes teasing her, but also because he likes knowing he’s still the number one man in her life. He suspects she knows this, and she knows why he fishes from time to time, that he wants that reassurance, but she’s never called him on it. And he’s grateful for that. She doesn’t tell him about every date, but he assumes she’d tell him if there was someone serious.

It’s strange, he thinks, that they’ve gradually given each other the space over the years for the feelings they’ve never even discussed. There is no one on this earth that he is more entangled with, psychologically, than Olivia. No one.

He feels a nagging desire for her to stay single right now, and he doesn’t like what that says about him. His heart is pounding as he sits across from her, and it isn’t like he’s been oblivious to the attraction. But now that the idea is there, now that he’s looking directly at it, he can’t hold himself back.

He can’t keep his gaze away from her mouth, or the way she licks her lips after each bite. He can’t stop his eyes from dropping to the collar of her T-shirt and the ridge of collarbone there. He can’t stop the shiver developing at the timbre of her voice as she talks quietly about the case. Or the way his mind conjures up images of her in the dark, naked and warm and real enough to be a memory.

In a weird way, it’s like he’s been set loose. Like he’s been cuffed all these years and now he’s finally been unlocked.

When they’re finished eating, he doesn’t want to go home, so he orders another iced tea, and they sit back for a few silent moments and watch the nightlife getting started outside of the window.

The city has a way of making you feel lost and found at the same time, and he thinks, really, that’s the way he feels with Olivia. He likes being with her, even in the silent moments. And in this moment, right now, he doesn’t want to leave her at all. At the same time, he feels a pinch of loneliness that confuses him.

She meets his eyes over the table and he feels that familiar connection with her. The one that strikes so deep, and he understands then. Maybe for the first time. Maybe not. He is lonely with her, not because he wants to be somewhere else, but because he wants her in a way that he can’t have her. Because while they walk together during the daytime, and sometimes at night, while they work cases, they aren’t really _together_. Not in the sense of the word that he really wants.

She gives him a faint smile, and he panics a bit, because it feels like his emotions are written all over his face, and he has no idea what she’d do if she knew.

She returns those feelings to some extent. He knows this. But failing in his marriage feels like he’s also failing Olivia, and he’s not sure why.

He swallows and looks away.

“Hey,” she says, quietly.

He looks up again, expecting… something. He’s not sure what. But instead she runs her fingernail along a ridge in her glass and licks her lips nervously and then asks, “Do you believe that everything happens for a reason?”

He exhales slowly, studying her. “What do you mean?” he asks. “Like… preordained?”

She thinks about that for a moment and frowns, then finally shrugs. “I don’t know. Like… do you think things happen to people to make them ready for something else?”

She’s gazing out of the window and isn’t looking at him, and he lets his gaze run freely over the curve of her lips and the dark smudge that her eyelashes make against her cheek. “God tests us all,” he says.

Her eyes finally lift to his. “You’re Catholic,” she says. “Do you think everything that happens is because God wanted it that way?”

He holds her gaze for a long, quiet moment. He isn’t sure how to answer that, and he really wants to know why she’s asking. “You’re Catholic too,” he points out.

Her mouth twists wryly. “Lapsed,” she counters. “If you can even call it that. I never really started in the first place.”

He knows Olivia has a complicated relationship with religion. The way she occasionally questions him about it, with an almost reverence that sometimes dips into mocking, has proven that to him. Her mother had been a sporadic church-goer who hadn’t required any particular religious education for Olivia. It hadn’t been until she’d gone to college that she’d explored it beyond an abstract concept.

“Are you asking if I think it’s part of God’s plan that child molesters exist in the world?” he asks, because he just isn’t sure.

She bites her lip and stares down at the ice in her glass and seems to think. “I… I just wonder sometimes if all that stuff in my childhood—my mother, her experience, her addiction—all of it… maybe it happened to make me who I am.” She meets his gaze again. “Maybe I was meant for this, El. Maybe all of it happened to me so I could stay in this job and help people.”

He feels slightly speechless. And a little worried. He doesn’t like her dwelling on her mother or the circumstances of her birth, even though it’s a part of her and he knows that part will always remain unhealed.

“What brought this on?” he asks softly.

She shrugs. “Nothing in particular. It’s something I’ve always thought about.”

He stares at her, and he wants to reach out and touch her. He wants to put his hand on the back of her neck the way he does—the way she lets him—when she’s hurting.

“I mean,” she continues. “I’m probably just trying to find some sort of positive spin to put on all of it, but…” She trails away, looking frustrated, and he can feel her fluster from where he sits.

“I think,” he says, “That God puts some things in our lives that we have to overcome, but he also gives us freewill. And sometimes other people use that freewill to test us even further. And what matters is how you use that experience, how you transform it to live your life.”

She chews on that for a while, her thumb running over that ridge on her glass, and then she smiles faintly at him and says, “That’s a very liberal and modern answer.”

He smiles. “Yeah, well this job has changed my view on a lot of things over the years.”

She purses her lips and nods in absent agreement. “So what does God do when we don’t follow his preordained road?”

He grimaces and then shrugs. “Hell if I know. I’m pretty sure I wandered off the beaten path years ago”

She smiles and glances down. It’s almost shy, and he has to restrain himself from reaching for her. “So how do we know the difference?” she asks.

He tilts his head a bit, perplexed. “What?”

“Between a test and something that is meant to be.”

He stares at her, and all the conversations he’s had over the years, with his priest, with God, come back to him. “Temptation or truth,” he muses, quietly, and her head jerks up as she meets his gaze. He can’t look away.

“Yeah,” she says, hoarsely, and he can see the recognition in her eyes, and the fear. That they are talking about more than her past, more than his. That there are temptations and truths between them that are so hopelessly tangled it may be impossible to ever truly know what is right.

“You don’t,” he finally answers. “You have faith.”

She holds their connection for a long moment, but then she swallows and looks away, her whole being closing down to him. “We should go,” she finally says.

So they do.

* * * * *

He sits in the car after dropping her off and stares down the street for a while. In a gap between buildings he can see the raised level of the parkway and the red taillights of the cars as they move.

He remembers his mother telling him he’s been living his father’s life, so wrapped up in duty and so tied down by commitment that he’s not even his own man.

Maybe she’s right. He struggles to break away from the pattern his father set, and it’s never been easy. But maybe now it will be different. He would stay with Kathy for the kids. He would stay with her, despite everything, if she needed him. If she wanted him to. Because he made vows to her and to God.

But what is he giving her by staying? If their positions were reversed…

He thinks about Olivia and how it feels when she is distant from him. When she shoves him aside for his own safety, because she loves his kids and she loves him and she sees herself as expendable. How he feels when she runs off with another cop, leaving him behind, her smile aimed at someone else. How those replacements of him all fall in love with her a little bit, because she’s got that quality. She’s a little lost and a little out of reach and her dark eyes look into you a thousand miles deep. He hates it when she goes.

Even the thought makes his chest ache.

If that’s what he’s doing to Kathy, it isn’t right. He accepted years ago that what he and Kathy had wasn’t the same anymore. That it had changed over the years and settled into something more comfortable. Something that didn’t make them happy, but still sustained them. Allowed them to focus on the kids.

The past ten years he’s spent more time with Olivia than he has with Kathy, and he’s been happy that way. He doesn’t remember the day it changed. The day he stopped being annoyed by knowing Olivia better than his wife, and started relishing it. He doesn’t remember the day he stopped the teasing flirtation and started really dreaming about her: naked, wet and laid out beneath him.

He doesn’t remember when the partner-like concern and protectiveness became abject terror that she would leave him someday.

It all just turned on him, so silently and stealthily that he never really saw it, even if he’d always been absently aware of it.

He doesn’t know when his affection turned to love, but like a sledgehammer it hits him. It hits him and the word feels right in his mouth, in his chest.

Kathy was right, and she deserves better.

And he deserves to find his own path and walk it.

Even if it takes him straight to Olivia.

*

*

Kathy leaves him alone for a week. She’s always known he needs time to process. That he reacts first and thinks later. She’s not even hostile. Maybe a little distant. She’s had her say, and she’s made up her mind, and he realizes that has given her peace of mind in a way. Not completely, because when she looks at him, he can still see the tightness of her lips, the resentment in her eyes.

He can’t help feeling that he’s really been expecting this for years now. That he’s amazed at how long he’s gotten away with it. How long she’s let him just coast.

Olivia looks at him with concerned eyes too, but in a different way. She tries to act normal for him and she doesn’t press about his marriage, and he appreciates that. He feels on solid ground when he’s with her. There is a niggling sense of worry though, because things will change. Eventually.

He’s sitting on the back step having a beer on that Saturday. They had frost last night, but today it’s nearly 50 and he can feel winter dying and spring coming in.

Kathy comes out, wrapped in her old yellow sweater and sits down beside him, calmly.

He picks at the label on his bottle and doesn’t look at her. He’s been getting used to the idea of divorce all week, working through the emotions. It isn’t like last time. It would be a lie to say he’s surprised, and maybe even more of a lie to say he’s unhappy. He feels a keen sense of disappointment in himself, especially in what he failed to deliver for his children, but the part of him that is now waking up to all things Olivia isn’t so devastated.

“I want to tell the kids tonight,” Kathy says, quietly. “Kathleen is coming for dinner, and we’ll call Maureen tomorrow. You can take your time moving out, but you need to not waver over it. I want Dick and Lizzie to have the summer to get used to this, so they’re okay by the time they go off to college.”

He listens and then he nods, slowly. She’s right. It’s the best plan. He realizes she’s been thinking about this a lot.

She continues, “I’m going to talk to my attorney on Monday, Elliot. We’ll have to work out arrangements for Eli, but I think the rest are old enough to decide on their own. I’m not going to force them to do anything.”

He nods again, because he can’t argue.

She looks at him. “We’ll just tell them that things changed. We’ve grown into different people.”

He has half the label peeled away from the bottle and he takes a drink and says, “Okay.” Because she’s being kind about it.

“Thank you,” she says. “For not trying to stop this.” And she sounds genuine, and he suddenly wants to apologize to her.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he can’t get his voice above a rasp.

“I know,” she says, and she has her arms folded around her against the wind, and she stares at the big oak tree in the middle of their backyard. “Maybe it was inevitable. We were so young when we got married. We had a family right away. We barely got to know each other as people first.”

He smiles faintly. “No one stays the same. I guess we grew up together. We just went different directions.”

She nods and glances at him. “It isn’t all on you, Elliot. I didn’t mean to imply that over the past few weeks. I mean… the job definitely had something to do with it, and Olivia… But I changed too. And by the time I realized that the life I wanted wasn’t the one I had, well, it was too late. I was as trapped as you were.”

“I never felt trapped, Kathy,” he says, softly.

“Yeah, you did,” she says, and she’s maybe always been good at seeing the truth before he does. “We both did, but we made the best of it. Twenty-five years is nothing to sneeze at. We did better than most.”

It’s reassuring to hear that from her. He takes a deep draw from his beer and offers it to her. She takes the bottle and sips and then hands it back. “I knew it was over when I realized I was actually hoping you were having an affair, because then I’d have an excuse to walk away, free and clear,” she says.

That stings a little, but it’s a familiar feeling, and he remembers how he went after her when she was pregnant with Eli, wondering if he was the father or not. Maybe not because he’d been suspicious, but because a part of him had felt like he was being roped in. Caged.

“I want to be happy,” she continues. “I want to find that person who makes me feel that way again.”

And he thinks about how she really does deserve so much more. More than he’s given her. She’s the one to finally put her foot down and say enough. To finally get their lives straight. He owes her so much. Much more than this.

“You’re right,” he says suddenly and thickly, his throat dry and hoarse. He takes a deep breath as she glances at him. “I’m in love with Olivia,” he admits.

It’s silent for one long moment, and then she breathes deeply and exhales, and it’s a shuddery sound. Not pained, but relieved. And it’s finally all out there. “I know,” she repeats, still quietly.

“You’re not crazy,” he says. “You never were. But I promise you…” He turns to look her in the eye then, with as much intensity as he can muster. “We never slept together, Kathy. We never did anything.”

She studies him for a moment and then looks away, her blond hair blowing across her face. She just nods in reply, and he doesn’t know if she believes him or not, and she’s not going to give him any reassurances or tell him it’s okay, and he’s fine with that. He doesn’t want that.

“I hope you do find someone who makes you happy,” he says, and he means it.

After a while, she says, “You too.” And she stands to go back into the house. “Whoever that might be.”

[]


	5. x=0

[]

Olivia wants to sit in on Dunn's trial when it starts, but it promises to be long and involved and she just doesn't have the time. Both the Jersey police and Mary's family have organized searches each weekend, and she and Elliot went out each time and helped.

They feel guilty, maybe. In part because the judge has disallowed any mention of the suspected rape, but mostly because had they just done their job and nailed Nick on the rape Mary would be alive now. It's a bitter pill.

They never found any sign. Nick still insists that Mary took off, but the circumstantial evidence against him is growing. All reported sightings have proved false, she hasn't called nor has their been any activity on her cell phone at all. No credit card activity or attempts to draw from her bank accounts. She's been gone a month now without a word.

Perhaps the most damning is the bloody boot print the Jersey crime lab found on the gas pedal of Mary's car. The print, a mix of Mary's blood and mud, matched boot prints found around Nick Dunn's pick-up in the park, although the boots have never been found. His muddy feet from the night of his arrest were the same size 10 as the imprint in Mary's car.

His lawyer tries to explain it away as an old print made after Mary cut herself and bled while she helped Nick change a tire. Nick then stepped in the blood and drove, leaving the print. The lack of erosion on the ridges of the print seems to argue against that point.

They are distracted as the weeks wear on, and Olivia isn't sure if Elliot is so distant because of their shared guilt over Mary's case, or if he and Kathy are still working things out. Maybe a little of both.

* * * * *

The guilty ones are always the most belligerent.

They all think they’re smarter than the police and exempt from the rules that run the rest of society. They spend way too much time on conspiracy websites and hearing the law from other oddballs.

“I know my rights!” Harlan screeches at them through his screen door. He is wearing a too-small white polyester T-shirt over his beer belly and sagging nylon shorts, and his hair is past his shoulders along with his beard.

She is standing two steps up on his porch, and Elliot is just below her, and she feels him go still because he knows what’s coming as well as she does.

She looks pointedly at Harlan's living room window where his camera equipment is plainly visible, pointed directly at the playground across the street.

He sneers at them. “You can’t come into my house unless I invite you!” He folds his arms over his chest.

Well. That’s a new one. She glances back at Elliot and his eyes lift to hers, his jaw loose, his brows settling low, and she shifts back a bit. “Come out and talk to us, Harlan. Don’t make us come in,” she warns him.

"You stay out of my house, bitch!" Harlan adds, and Olivia barely has time to think, "Oh, shit." Before Elliot is charging up the steps and grabbing the screen door, yanking it open, and Harlan starts screaming, “I know my rights! I know my rights!”

Elliot grabs him by the shirt and drags him out, down the steps, and then plants him face first on the ground, twisting his arms behind his back. “You have the _right_ to remain silent,” Elliot snarls.

“You can’t do this!” Harlan screams. “I’m suing you! I’m suing the whole city! You’re going to lose your jobs! You can’t come into my house unless I invite you!”

“We’re the police, Harlan,” Olivia calls to him as she flips her cell out. “Not vampires.”

Elliot digs his knee into the small of Harlan's back and puts the cuffs on him roughly. He's scowling and he's angry. More angry than he should be when their perp is so obvious and stupid, she thinks, and a thread of worry creeps up into her consciousness.

Harlan is still screaming bloody murder and she can hear the word 'bitch' being used generously. It's an insult that doesn't even faze her anymore. The lack of creativity sometimes makes her laugh. It's the first word that heinous men grab for when she's on the right track and they start to fear her.

Elliot leans down over Harlan though, and growls, "Shut the fuck up, asshole!" And he grabs the back of Harlan's head and presses his face into the grass, forcibly shutting him up. She quickly steps to his side and puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Elliot," she says quietly and insistently, warning him.

He glances at her, and there's fury in his eyes. She sees him get himself under control though, and he climbs off of Harlan and yanks him to his feet, shoving him toward their car.

She follows, warily.

* * * * *

Harlan continues his spittle-flinging rant the entire time he's in an interview room, and he invokes his lawyer but continues screaming anyway, even long after they've left the room. When the crime scene techs get back from Harlan's house, they just roll their eyes in awe.

"There's so much child porn on his computer that it'll take us a decade to get through it all," one of them says, and really it's a slam-dunk. They can pass him off quickly to the D.A. and Olivia's glad to wash her hands of the scumbag.

Elliot smiles faintly when she updates him, but mostly he sits at his desk and does paperwork, and she watches him staring into space.

"Hey," she finally says, after Cragen's gone home and they're nearly the only ones left in the squad room. "What's up?"

He focuses on her and hesitates, and she can see the indecision in his eyes. He finally shrugs and says, "Harlan just got to me."

She furrows her brows and she can feel how tightly he's wound right now, and she knows she has to proceed carefully. "He was ridiculous," she says. "He was almost a caricature." Because usually Elliot can laugh along with her when they meet someone as over-the-top as Harlan is.

Elliot doesn't respond at all to that, and she sighs.

"Is it Kathy?" she finally asks. "I don't want to pry, El, but..."

He grimaces, and she isn't sure if that means she's on the right track or if he's just tired of it all. She feels a little off kilter too, because when he's like this she is affected. She hates seeing him in pain, but he rarely wants help. She's often torn between the desire to touch him in comfort or shake him violently and yell "Communication, you idiot! Try it!"

On the other hand, it's not like communication is her forte either.

"It's nothing," he says, slowly. "I'm fine." She gives him a doubtful look, and he holds her gaze for what seems like an hour, and then he says, "Come on. I'll drive you home."

And really, unless she wants to bully him into it, that's about all she can do. So she gets up and they go.

* * * * *

He's quiet on the drive, and she turns the radio on and leans back and lets the tiredness wash over her. The job is never less than demanding, but some days she feels it more than others. Cases like Harlan's tend to send her into conflict. She's simultaneously disgusted, once more, by the depravity some humans show, and happy that evil can sometimes be so stupid that it's easily caught and convicted.

When they pull up outside of her apartment, she glances at Elliot, and he sits quietly staring at his hands on the steering wheel. Asking him if he's okay yet again feels too much, but she doesn't want to give up, so she asks, "You want to grab some dinner?"

He furrows his brow absently and then slowly shakes his head. "I'm okay."

She sighs. "Alright." She gives him a faint smile and gives up for the night, climbing out and slinging her bag over her shoulder.

In her apartment, she gets her coat and shoes off and fills a glass with water and she stands against the kitchen counter trying to decide if she wants to go to the gym or order dinner.

Instead, there's a knock at her door, and when she opens it, Elliot is standing there.

"Hey," she says, surprised, thinking maybe he's changed his mind about dinner.

He looks at her though, with a dark, intense gaze, and she feels a thread of unease.

"I need to talk to you," he says, quietly. "I've been putting this off and I can't anymore."

And that scares her a little bit. "Okay," she says, and she stands back to let him in, and a hundred bad scenarios flash through her mind, the first and foremost the idea that Kathy has demanded he quit the job and she's about to be left partnerless. She's half expected it for years now, and she's always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He walks in and takes his jacket off, and his tie is already loose around his neck, his collar unbuttoned. He looks nervous, and that does nothing to calm her fears. He turns around to face her as she comes up behind him, and asks, "You have anything to drink here? I need something."

She looks at him for a moment and then walks toward her kitchen and says, "You're scaring the shit out of me, Elliot."

"Sorry," he says. "This isn't something I... " He trails away and rubs wearily at his forehead, and she starts to mentally brace herself for whatever is coming.

She rarely keeps beer in her refrigerator. She has wine and a bottle of brandy that moves slowly, and she takes a tumbler out of her cupboard and pours him two fingers of the brandy. She hands it to him, and he meets her gaze as he takes it. "Are you transferring out?" she asks, softly, wanting to get it over with.

He looks at her for a long moment and then takes a big gulp of the brandy. He takes a breath and seems to wait a moment for the warmth to hit him before he shakes his head and says, "No. It isn't about the job."

That... is slightly more confusing. She feels reassured and yet...

"Can you sit down?" he asks.

She pauses and then walks to her sofa and lowers herself, uncomfortably, onto it. He finishes off the rest of the brandy in two swallows and then sits next to her and leans forward over his knees, his hands scrubbing at his face and then hanging loosely between his thighs.

"I moved out two weeks ago. Kathy and I are divorcing."

She had suspected but she still feels a dull sense of pain for him, along with a resistance. They've all been through this before. In a few weeks, he and Kathy will miss each other and it won't seem so bad... "Okay," she says, calmly. "Don't jump the gun, El. Maybe you just need some time apart. You could--"

"Olivia," he says, almost sharply, and he looks at her. "We're getting divorced. We've talked about it. It's decided."

She bites her lip carefully. "You guys have had some rough patches, but you always pull through."

"It's not a rough patch. It's been coming for a while, but we've been ignoring it."

She still isn't quite ready to believe it. "Look," she says. "The job makes it hard, I know. Maybe we can try harder to get you home earlier."

"That's not it, Olivia."

She feels annoyance with him and realizes she wants to blame him. She knows how he can be, how incommunicative, how callous, how self-centered, and she feels like he never quite realizes what he has. There are so many people who would die to have what he has. She just... "Does she want you to quit?" she asks. She swallows. "I know we've been partners a long time, and it'd be rough. But, El... if that's what it's going to take, then..."

"She thinks I'm in love with you." He says it in a quiet tone of voice that cuts through everything in her head.

Her mouth runs dry. There is a stabbing pain deep inside of her, and she has to bite her panic down. _So it’s finally happened._ And she isn’t sure why that’s her first thought. That stabbing pain feels a little like guilt, and no. No. They haven’t done anything to feel guilty about, damn it.

She stares at him, and he refuses to look at her, and she says, softly, "That's ridiculous."

"Is it?" His voice is rough. He stares at her floor and rubs his fingers together.

She feels all of those moments, rather than sees them. In the warehouse with Gitano, in Cragen's office while he covers for her over her distraction with Simon, on his front step in the early morning.

The guilt is too much.

"Yes," she insists. "Yes, it is. We never did _anything_. Did you tell her that?"

He nods absently. "That doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters," she says, feeling a panicky edge of anger springing up. "Of course it _matters_! What are you going to do, just let her walk away? For God's sake, Elliot."

"I admitted it, Liv," he says, very quietly, and everything stops.

Her vision narrows to him and everything just pauses, and even her heart stops beating and her breath runs out. "What?" she whispers.

He swallows. She hears it in his throat, and then his jaw tightens and he turns and looks right at her and he says, "I admitted it." And his voice is that low rasp that tells her he's bare to the bone, and she can't look away from him, because the weight of his gaze is paralyzing.

She doesn't know what to feel, so she just goes numb, and when her breath starts again, she says, "Elliot..." So softly that she can barely hear it herself.

"We tried, Olivia," he says in that same low tone. "No one can say we didn't. But we have to stop pretending now. We're hurting people."

Her entire world is tilting dangerously, and she feels every inch of it. "Pretending," she repeats, and she has to look away from him. "There was nothing to pretend. We didn't... We never..." She doesn't even know how to explain it.

"We didn't act on it," he says. "But it was there. You know it."

She feels completely tangled up and aching. She pulls her feet up onto the sofa and brings her knees in close and she presses her fingers against her lips. "Elliot, I didn't want this," she whispers. "I never wanted this. You belong with your family, and I was _okay_ with that!"

"I know," he says. He is less nervous now that it's out. "It isn't your fault, Olivia. It just... it happened. Kathy and I were having problems long before you came along."

She feels like it is her fault. She spent her childhood idolizing the families she saw on TV, the families of her friends in school. By the time she was partnered with Elliot she'd known that it was something she was unlikely to ever achieve. He was her family. Whatever confused feelings flew between them, she'd taken on his family as her own, even as she'd kept her distance. She'd been willing to fight to keep them together, no matter the sacrifice to her. She still is.

"You're just..." She's the one scrubbing wearily at her forehead now. "Confused," she finishes.

"No," he says, immediately. "I used to be. I'm not anymore."

She's shaking her head, slowly, but she's not sure why. She feels like they'd agreed on the rules of their partnership, and all that happened inside of it, long ago, and now he's changing everything. He was her safe zone. He was the intimacy and protection and partnership of a marriage, but without the danger of losing.

"Olivia," he says, and his voice is stronger now. "We have to work through this, but not right now, okay? Nothing has to change right now."

She stands up then, her nervous energy too much. "I can't," she says, glancing at him as she paces. "I can't be the one who breaks up your family."

"You're not," he says, and his gaze is piercing in its intensity. "Jesus... there are so many other factors in play here. So many things that happened to get us to this point."

She doesn't say anything, but she shakes her head again. Her mind is spinning. He loves her? He _loves_ her? There is a deep ache inside of her, and she realizes that she doesn't doubt it so much. That maybe she's always been a little afraid of this. That there is a fine, sharp edge of excitement there too. It makes her want to cry with the guilt.

"How do I convince you?" he asks.

"I just..." She looks at him then, not sure what to tell him. She leans against her wall and folds her arms over her chest and she just keeps shaking her head helplessly. "We should have separated a long time ago. When we knew it was happening. We should have..."

He stands then. "We couldn't," he says, quietly. "By the time we really realized, it was too late. I don't think anything could have changed it."

"It was just the job," she says, and there's a pleading quality to her voice that she doesn't like. Like she's trying to convince herself as well as him. "It was hard and we faced so much together. It was easy to get confused."

He walks to her and leans on the wall next to her. "You know that's not it," he says. "It might have started like that, but it's been twelve years, Olivia. We know each other better than we know ourselves."

She closes her eyes briefly and takes a long, deep breath. She thinks _I never should have come back from Oregon._ And as if to prove his point, Elliot somehow knows.

"Liv," he says, and he turns so he's almost blocking her in against the wall. "Listen to me. Nothing you do is going to change this. Do you understand me?"

She stares at the photos on her end table and she thinks _I need to talk to Kathy. She just doesn’t understand._

His hand grips her shoulder and she startles. He is so very close, and she starts to move away but he tightens his grip, and he leans over until she's forced to look at him. "I know you," he says, vehemently. "And I'm telling you right now, it doesn't matter. If you disappeared right now out of my life, it would _not_ make a difference. Kathy and I wouldn't get back together. The feelings wouldn't instantly disappear. My life would not go back to the way it was. Kathy and I have our own thing to work out, and it doesn't involve you at all."

She does know. She knows this isn't so simple. That there are shades of gray and long-standing issues that have helped things along, and some of those things have nothing to do with her. Just like she has issues and shades of gray that have nothing to do with him. But she can see the worry in his eyes, and he's afraid. He's afraid she's thinking about leaving. That he'll come in tomorrow morning to find her desk cleaned out and Cragen waiting with a sorrowful look on his face. And he's not wrong.

Her first instinct is to get far away. To take herself out of the equation so everything can go back to normal. Because it's always her. She is always the integer that throws everything off.

"Olivia," he growls, and there is anger in his voice now. His fingers curl into her shoulder almost painfully and he gives her a jerk, so she feels annoyed and she stares into his eyes. "Tell me you understand me. Tell me you're not going to run away from this. From _me_. Promise me you're going to stay right here and settle this with me. Because you disappearing isn't going to solve this. You get it?"

She swallows and his blue eyes are intense and a little uncertain. But she ran away once, and it hadn't done anything except make things even more complicated. He is calm and rational and their lives are not the same chaos they were then. She is desperate to run, but she is desperate to stay. To fix things.

"Liv," he says again, and everything about him strikes her deep. The low tone of his voice, the heat that radiates from his body, the blue eyes that are so familiar. She looks at him, and he is her partner. He is her family. He might be other things too, but he is those two things first and always.

"I promise," she says.

He doesn't let her go right away. He looks into her eyes and he studies her and she can see that he's still afraid. Afraid to leave her alone. Afraid that if he doesn't keep his eye on her at all times, she'll slip away.

"I promise, Elliot," she repeats, softly. "But I need some time to think. Go home. I promise I'll be there tomorrow morning, okay?"

He is reluctant, but his fingers loosen and he takes a step back. "You'd better mean it, Olivia," he says. "I'll take anything from you. You can be furious with me. You can decide you don't want to be partners anymore. You can even hate me. But don't just disappear on me again. Don't do that."

She swallows. "I won't."

He still looks worried, but he relaxes a bit.

"I think I'm done for tonight," she says. "I really just need some time to think about this, okay? Please?"

He looks pained at that, but he nods again and goes to grab his jacket from the chair he threw it over. He walks to her door, but before he opens it, he looks back at her. "We're going to work through this, Liv," he says.

He waits for her answer, but when she stays silent, he finally leaves.

 

* * * * *

He drives slowly back to the apartment he now rents, his nerves shot.

He’d never really thought he’d have that conversation with Olivia. Thinking about her and sex had been easier. Sex was sex, and he’d never been able to really deny his attraction to her. And the long, dark dreams about her tangled around him, their sweat sliding as they fucked into oblivion, had been easy to blame on the bad cases.

Telling her he loved her though, and that it was partially the reason his marriage was ending? Jesus…

He could have kept it to himself. He could have given her the same blanket statement he and Kathy had given the kids and just gone on with things. But for some reason, he just couldn’t. When he thinks about the future, and Olivia, he feels some hope. And he’s pretty sure that keeping this from her would fuck it all up if she ever found out.

He just has to keep her from running, and he’s on unfamiliar ground right now. He isn’t at all sure what she will do with this new information.

He stops at a KFC and gets a chicken sandwich that he doesn’t feel like eating. His heart is still pounding and he feels a little like he did when Kathy had told him she wanted a divorce the first time. Except now he feels it with Olivia, and he’s not sure why.

He’s afraid.

He eats half the sandwich and then throws the rest when he gets home. The crickets are chirping loudly in the darkness when he walks up the stairs to his new apartment.

It’s small and empty, part an old split-level. He got it quick because a little old lady lives in the level below and her son was impressed that Elliot was a cop. Elliot warned him that he was rarely home, but the guy felt his mom was safer or something. He got a reduced rent too for agreeing to shovel snow in the winter, and really he lucked out with that. There’s little room for his kids, but he can’t quite afford that.

Not until the twins are out of college and on their own. Until then, he sleeps on a futon and he has sleeping bags and air mattresses in the closet. Kathleen and Liz have been over once since he moved, and while they complained heartily about the sleeping arrangements, they also looked slightly amused. They aren’t young enough to find it an adventure, but Eli will love it.

He grabs a beer from the fridge and then sits on the futon and turns the TV on, and in the stillness of the apartment, the day settles down on him.

 _Shit, Olivia… Don’t you run._

He wants to call her. He wants to keep calling her all night long to make sure she’s there. He wants to sit outside of her apartment to head her off if she gets any ideas about leaving him again.

Jesus. That’s just insane.

He realizes then how much she’s crept up on him. How much he wants her. It’s strange that it was only a couple of months ago that he was breezing right along thinking everything was normal. When he looks back he can see it all. The distance he’d created between he and Kathy, the way he’d been turning more and more to Olivia, the jealousy that had always been there but had been growing the past year, maybe because she’d seemed so… satisfied with everything.

She’d run from him after Gitano, but he’d run from her first. He’d had to. He’d been in a horrible place, and his whole life had been crumbling around him. He’d just wanted everything to go back to the way it was, and he’d jumped at the chance when it was offered.

Their partnership had taken much longer to heal, but it had gotten there. And then, once it had, she’d been happier. He’d been able to see it, feel it. She’d been more willing to let go of him and walk away. And suddenly he’d been falling again. He’d reacted by being more possessive and hanging on tighter, and she’d taken it, but it hadn’t slowed her down.

He’s amazed now, that he hadn’t been able to admit to himself what it really was. Now that he’s been set free he can’t even see that boundary anymore.

Really, Kathy was smarter and wiser than them all.

She’d be fine, because she always was. She’d make sure she was. It’s him who has the battle to fight ahead.

He’s the one who very well might not be fine. He and Olivia.

His life has split now, he realizes, and he is at the fork of a path.

And now he has to choose.

[]


	6. Relativity

* * * * * *

She’s there when he gets in the next morning. She doesn’t make him sweat it out. He walks into the squad room and she’s at her desk and every atom in his body just releases his tension into the air. It’s like ten tons off his shoulders.

He stops right inside the door and just stares at her, and she glances up and she looks tired, but she gives him a faint smile. He feels as tired as she looks and he figures that neither of them got much sleep last night.

“Hey,” he says, slipping into his chair and looking at her across their desks. He needs coffee, but he’ll get it later. He just needs to connect with her first.

“Hey,” she says, and she isn’t the usual determined force he sees in the morning, but she’s _there_ , and that’s all that matters.

“You get some sleep?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Not really.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Me neither.”

Her gaze flickers away from him, and he watches her.

She needs time, but he’s not sure if he should give it to her. He’s not sure if time will allow her to accept things or if it’ll only let her talk herself into leaving.

It’s hard to focus on work. He really just wants to pull her aside and find a quiet place and talk this all out, but it isn’t the right time. It really shouldn’t be a big surprise to them, he thinks. Those complicated feelings have been around since nearly the beginning. But now that it’s all blown up… It’s all he can think about.

He realizes too, that he needs to rein himself in a bit. Olivia can take the worst of him right along with the best, but this is different. She needs time to work it out, and he can’t hammer it all home with his usual bluntness.

People think he never changes, but he does. He has. He’s had 12 years with this woman, and he has learned.

She’s staring down at the report on her desk, but she’s been on the same page for nearly fifteen minutes and he can tell she isn’t really seeing it. He’s glad that neither of them has court that day.

He gets up to pour a cup of coffee, and when he turns around, she’s standing and grabbing her jacket, and without thinking he demands, “Where are you going?”

She glances at him and away and says, “I gotta take a break.” She grabs the keys off his desk. “I’m taking the squad.”

“I’ll go with you,” he says, starting to set down his cup.

She turns again and looks at him, and this time she meets his gaze head-on. He sees everything there. Everything that’s happened in the past 24 hours. Every word he said to her, every feeling she’s agonized over. It makes his stomach clench. She holds her hand up. “No,” she says, but she keeps her voice soft. “I just… I’ll be back soon.”

He stares at her, and she looks away, and suddenly he realizes where she’s going.

Kathy.

He wants to argue then. His first instinct is to protest. He even opens his mouth to start in. But then he stops.

Olivia has mostly allowed him to conduct his private life in private. They talk, but she’s mostly stayed out of his marriage, except when he’s being bull-headed. But he knows, even if she never told him, that she’s also had his back with Kathy. That she’s walked a fine line between being his partner and being supportive of Kathy.

She and Kathy have a relationship, no matter how tenuous or focused on him it might be, that is separate from everything else. And he has no power over that.

When Olivia glances back at him, he holds her gaze for a long moment and then shrugs. “Okay,” he says. “See you in a bit.”

He can almost see the breath she releases in relief, and then she’s gone.

He slowly stirs sugar into his coffee and returns to his desk and tries to focus on his work. This is just the beginning, he thinks. And if he’s going to walk down this road, then Olivia has to accept everything. And if he can’t convince her, well, maybe Kathy can.

* * * * *

She feels a sense of urgency, even as she drives slowly. Partly because of the morning traffic, and partly because she feels slightly scattered and she isn’t quite sure what she wants to say to Kathy once she gets to Queens.

Her weariness is heavy behind her eyes, but her heart hasn’t stopped pounding since Elliot said those words. _I admitted it, Liv._

God, her head is a mess.

She hurts, and in so many ways that she isn’t sure she can separate all the little threads out from each other. All she can really think about are Elliot’s kids, and this is not what she wants. This is not what she meant to do. This is not _her_.

Surely Kathy will see that once they talk things out. Everything can be normal again.

She has to at least try.

Traffic across the bridge isn’t bad, since she’s going away from Manhattan, and when she’s in Queens and stopped at a red light, she finally takes a moment to breathe.

After Elliot left the night before, she’d paced. Sleep had been impossible, and her thoughts had come rapid-fire, layering over the top of each other and turning her gut into a churning pit.

Guilt and regret, yes, but also fear and anger and then excitement and something else. Something like warmth and eagerness and longing. Elliot has always been more open about his attraction to her than maybe he realizes. He’s couched it in teasing over the years, but she’s seen the depth of it in his gaze.

But all their shared experiences, the bond that holds them together, his dedication to doing _the right thing_ has always made her feel safe. Her own attraction… Well, it’s been more of a struggle.

She’s coped by clamping down hard. By biting the bullet and simply not acting on her feelings. Sometimes the only thing she could do was withdraw from him. But for all his swagger and bluster, he does know her, and he has learned to read her little tells over the years.

Gitano blew them wide open, and they were a flailing mess for a while, but they’d recovered.

Sometimes she wonders what a normal, typical partnership is like. Because when she looks around she doesn’t see _anyone_ in the department like them. Somehow they’ve built themselves into a tangled mass of wires and steel beams, bent and broken and yet impenetrable to any outsider, and as daunting as it is for others to face them together, it’s just as daunting to think about extricating herself and getting out.

Except now it’s all different. Now they _have_ to change in some way, and the entire idea of it is making her feel panicky.

Elliot’s street is quiet in the late morning. The kids still have a few weeks left of school before summer vacation starts, and the parents have all left for work or are inside doing all the little odd jobs you do around the house. The sun shines down on the pavement and the yards are small and turning green, small buds appearing on the bare tree branches.

It’s so domestic and blatantly _normal_ that it makes her ache for a moment.

Over all their years together, she’s never been a frequent visitor to the Stabler household. Dinner a few times because she was his partner and that was what partners did. But she didn’t encroach on his weekends and she didn’t just drop by when she was ‘in the neighborhood’.

In some ways it had been because she’d wanted to allow him the space to run his own life. But in some ways she thinks maybe she’d also felt like she hadn’t belonged there. She feels more at home on the dirty city streets, climbing up to the battered and tiny lofts of victims who’d never known anything but the skyline of New York and the smell of the subway.

Out here, where families have barbeques on the weekends, mow their lawns, and sit down for dinner together, she feels distinctly out of place. Like she’s tainting something good and whole. Even the few times she’d had to talk to Elliot because she’d been broken or lost, she’d sat in the shadows of his house and waited for him to come home.

It’s a ‘thing’, she knows. A part of her created by her childhood and her mother and the looming threat of her father, always just out of sight. She can walk a good walk, but deep inside she can still feel as small as a little girl.

It’s taken her a long, long time to show weakness.

She parks along the curb in front his house and sits in the car for a few minutes, trying to decide what she wants to say. Kathy will almost instantly know why she’s there, and even alone she feels the heat in her cheeks.

 _Nothing happened. It doesn’t mean anything. I didn’t try to steal him, Kathy!_

Even in her mind, it feels like desperate babbling.

She and Kathy have never been close, but they’d managed an understanding. A peace. She likes to think there was even a trust, as fragile as it had to be.

She is suddenly very, very afraid, her heart pounding and her mouth running dry.

When she gets out of the car, she starts to go numb again. It’s something instinctual, really, and it makes her calm when she has reason to be anything but. It is why so many cops in the one-six label her as cold.

The front door is open, the steel screen door catching the spring breeze. It allows her to look into the foyer as she approaches. Before she even knocks, Kathy appears at the end of a hallway, a laundry basket in her hands. Olivia holds her breath, and Kathy turns and sees her.

They stand still and stare at each other. It seems like forever.

Then Kathy puts down the basket and walks toward the door. She looks at Olivia through the screen. “I guess he finally told you,” she says.

“Yes,” Olivia says, and her voice sounds scratchy to her own ears.

Kathy unlocks and opens the screen door and then steps back, and Olivia walks tentatively into the Stabler house.

When she turns, Olivia rushes her words. “Kathy, this is insane. Nothing ever happened. It’s not what you think it is. I never…”

“Can we please stop with all the denial?” Kathy interrupts. She leans back against the wall and folds her arms over her breasts. “I’m not crazy for seeing what’s right in front of my eyes, Olivia.”

It leaves Olivia speechless for a moment.

“Kathy…” she finally pleads, and then doesn’t know what else to say.

Kathy meets her gaze, and she doesn’t look furious, or even angry really. She takes a deep breath and then says, “Come on. I’ll make you some coffee.”

She walks past Olivia toward the kitchen, and Olivia stands for a moment, aching, and then turns and follows.

They’re silent while Kathy pours the coffee grounds into the filter and then fills the reservoir with water. The coffee maker starts boiling almost immediately and they both watch as the dark liquid starts filling the glass carafe.

“It isn’t really about you,” Kathy finally says, quietly, still watching the coffee. “Not as much as you think.”

“Nothing has ever happened between Elliot and I,” Olivia says, vehemently.

“Really?” Kathy asks skeptically, finally turning to look at her. “Maybe that depends on what you define as ‘nothing’.”

Olivia feels lost. “Nothing is just… nothing,” she says. “We’ve barely even hugged, Kathy.”

Kathy sighs. “Everyone thinks cheating is all about sex, but it’s not. It can be, but it can be so much more than that.”

Olivia feels a sharp knife of panic sliding deep. She feels exposed. “I’m not saying there weren’t confusing times, Kathy. The job is tough and we’re together a lot, and then you two were separated for a while, but it’s still just the job. His home is here. With you.”

Kathy takes two cups down from the cupboard and shakes her head, her breath coming out in a soft, skeptical snort. “Olivia, I know what the job is. I know what the partnership is. You think if it was just that I’d be walking away? Really?”

Olivia is frustrated. “Nothing happened!” she insists.

Kathy turns on her. “It doesn’t matter!”

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kathy repeats. She looks Olivia right in the eye. “It doesn’t matter that you didn’t sleep together or whether you’re in love or not. That’s not the point!”

“What is the point?” Olivia feels like she’s in some sort of crazyland.

“That I’m married to someone who is in love with someone else, and I deserve _better_ than that! Elliot and I have been falling out of love for a lot of years now, and the idea that we’re supposed to stay together and pretend to be happy for the sake of the kids, or ourselves, or God, or _whatever_ is ridiculous! We deserve to be happy. All of us.”

“And getting divorced is going to make you happy?”

Kathy sighs in frustration. “No. It’s really not. But it’s going to let us find our own paths to get there. It’s the first step to correct something that’s been wrong for a long time now.”

“I don’t even know what to say,” Olivia says.

Kathy looks at her, hard. “I want to find someone who makes me happy. Someone who isn’t staying out of duty and sentimentality. Someone who really loves me in that all-encompassing way we read about when we’re kids. And no,” she says, waving off Olivia’s words as Olivia opens her mouth to interrupt. “I’m not delusional. I know that might not exist. That it’s a fairytale to think there’s a perfect person in this world we’re meant to be with. But maybe it isn’t. All I know is that I’ve done my duty, and Elliot has done his, and I deserve to find someone who loves me enough to really put some effort into things. And, frankly, if you think I don’t, then you can buzz off.”

Normally, Olivia might smile at Kathy’s mild idea of swearing, but today it makes her feel small. She falls silent and stares at the floor, trying to decide what to say next. She’s beginning to see a bigger picture here, and it wars with her desire to set Elliot’s family back into its neat box in her mind. That of the idyllic, comforting group that waits at home for him to return.

Kathy takes a moment of silence too, and she pours two cups of coffee and sets them on the table, sitting down in front of one of them and wrapping her hands around the cup.

Olivia lowers herself wordlessly in front of the other, picking up her spoon and scooping sugar into her cup from the bowl on the table. From the other room she hears the rhythmic, persistent ticking of a clock, second by second, reminding her that the day marches on. In the silence of the kitchen it feels very much like time has stopped. She gets an image in her mind of Kathy sitting here during the day, while Elliot is at work with her and the kids at school, listening to that ticking and feeling her life passing her by.

“I’m sorry,” she says, almost in a whisper, staring into her coffee as she stirs the sugar into light brown swirls. “I never meant for this to happen.”

”I know,” Kathy says, just as quietly. “Me either.”

And for a while they sit in a companionable silence.

“I just can’t live in denial anymore,” Kathy finally says. “All my life I’ve been told that a marriage is forever. That following God and the church is always the right thing to do. And for a long time I believed it. For a long time that worked for me, and things between Elliot and I were hard but good.” She looks up at Olivia. “It was supposed to last forever, but it didn’t. When it finally broke, I was so afraid of failure, so afraid of disappointing my parents and the church, that I refused to see it.”

“Maybe you just need some time…” Olivia starts.

Kathy shakes her head. “We’ve had time. We’ve had 25 years, Olivia. Look. I can’t tell you truthfully that I don’t have some resentment towards you, but the real truth is, I have a little blame for everyone. I blame myself for not putting my foot down. I blame the job for giving the two of you no choice but to turn to each other. I blame Elliot for being so goddamned pig-headed. I blame both of us for getting married so young, when neither of us really knew what true love was. If we’d really still been working, your partnership wouldn’t have mattered. He’d have still come home and been present with us. Meeting you wouldn’t have affected him like it did.”

Olivia closes her eyes and rubs tiredly at her forehead.

Kathy’s voice continues, calmly. “Whatever you two end up being, it’s up to you now. I’m not going to be the reason—the justification—for staying apart. That isn’t what I want to be. Not for either of you anymore. It’s on you. My life is my own now, and I want this. I want a _life_. Stop trying to make me feel bad for wanting that.”

Olivia looks up. “I don’t want you to feel bad. I’ve never wanted to hurt you, Kathy. Ever. Neither has Elliot.”

“I know,” Kathy says. “I still know Elliot better than anyone else. I know how he thinks and where his heart is. Even if I don’t want to be married to him anymore, I’m still glad he’s the father of my children. I’m still glad for that 25 years.”

Olivia looks at her and listens, feeling more exhausted than maybe she ever has.

Kathy sees and relaxes, finally. “But I’m done now, okay? It’s time to move on. I have three daughters and the last lesson I want to teach them is that if things aren’t working out they have to stay and be miserable, because that’s their only option. I want them to be happy. I want them to know it’s hard work, but it’s okay to make mistakes. You correct them and move on. And that’s what we’re doing. I’m moving on and you need to stop trying to prevent that.”

Olivia swallows and grips her cup. “Okay,” she rasps.

Kathy nods and pushes her cup away. “I have to pick up Eli at his morning daycare class. I’m glad we had this talk, Olivia.”

“Me too,” Olivia says, but she still feels numb and a little shell-shocked.

Kathy walks her to the door and holds it open for her, and as Olivia walks through, Kathy says, “You’ve always weathered his temper better than I have. Maybe you really are meant for each other. The idea actually makes me feel better, weirdly enough. Like… there was nothing I could have done to stop it, you know?”

Olivia doesn’t even know what to say. Everything has been so sudden, so intense. She feels like she doesn’t even know what’s happening yet. “I…” she says, and then she is wordless again.

“Take care of him,” Kathy says, and she lets the screen door close.

Olivia swallows and pushes Elliot out of her mind for the moment, trying to see Kathy as her own woman, and not Elliot’s wife. For a moment, she looks into Kathy’s eyes and they feel equal and similar and sympathetic and outside of Elliot’s concern. “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” Olivia says, quietly. And she means it.

Kathy lifts the corner of her mouth in a faint smile. “Thank you,” she says, and she seems to almost breathe a sigh of relief. “You too.”

And then Kathy closes the front door and Olivia hears the click of the lock, and she turns and walks down the sidewalk toward the street and she feels a lot like she probably won’t see much of Kathy again. And it’s bittersweet in a way.

In different times maybe she and Kathy could have been friends. Maybe they’d have been enemies.

Either way, she is now gone, and Olivia suddenly feels her absence so, so strongly.

And she feels strangely mournful.

* * * * *

She drives for a while, because she doesn’t want to go back to the station. She feels oddly dislocated and a little less numb. Elliot’s marriage is over, regardless of anything, and her thoughts are tangled, as always.

She’s always had a very one-sided view of the Stabler marriage, her glimpses colored by Elliot’s side. All the same, she’s tried to see Kathy’s side as well. Tried to make Elliot see it too.

 _We tried, Olivia. No one can say we didn’t. But we have to stop pretending now._

Pretending.

She never had been. Her feelings for Elliot had always been complicated and heated, but she hadn’t been pretending. She’d never expected more than she got.

When she passes the Holland Tunnel, she feels a tug. She could still walk away. Get in her car and drive. She doesn’t want to leave as much as she did last night, but the urge is still there. Kathy’s convinced her it wouldn’t fix anything, but it doesn’t take the desire away.

This is all wrong. All wrong.

Her cell phone vibrates in her pocket, and she struggles in her seatbelt to pull it from her jeans. It’s a text from Elliot: _Ran a witness for Finn. Eating lunch at Thai Kitchen._

She’d like to take the whole day, just drive or maybe walk and get her head straight. But Cragen will ask questions if she doesn’t go back, and Elliot will definitely know what she’s doing, and he’ll worry.

She drives to Thai Kitchen. It beats facing him back in the squad room.

It’s mildly busy, and she sees him before he sees her. He’s sitting back by the restrooms, a plate of food and a soda sitting in front of him, and she stops for a moment and watches him, silently. It’s just Elliot. Just her partner. And yet everything about him seems different today, even as everything about him is familiar: The breadth of his shoulders, the way he leans on his elbows on the table, the bulge of his biceps under the blue dress shirt he wears, even in long sleeves.

Everything is familiar, and yet he’s never felt more like a stranger to her. At the same time she feels the instant pull toward him. The need to connect.

He’s always been her anchor, she thinks. Despite his occasional temper problems. He’s always been the one who’s grounded her, kept her still and at rest. Now she feels untethered and a little flighty, and she’s not sure why.

He looks up then, and so she moves. He watches her walk toward him, and she can’t read his expression.

She slips into the chair across from him, and he eyes her carefully. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

“You were gone a long time. I thought maybe you…” He hesitates, his fork tapping against his paper plate. “Decided not to come back.”

She shakes her head. “I’m here,” she says, quietly. She stares at his egg roll.

He pushes it toward her with his fork. “You hungry?”

“No.” She takes a deep breath.

He watches her for a while, and the low noise of people talking all around them drowns out the silence between them.

“You went and saw Kathy,” he states, and his fork absently pushes some noodles around on his plate.

She nods.

“It’s over,” he says. “For real this time.”

She nods again, still watching his fork.

He pauses for a moment and then he sets his fork down and he says, “Olivia, please _say_ something. Cuss me out if you want, but don’t sit there in silence and not even look at me.”

She looks up. “I don’t know what you _want_ ,” she says. “Everything’s changed. I just… I don’t know what to even think, much less do.”

“I don’t want…” He trails away and scrubs one hand over his face, pushing his plate away with the other. He looks at her steadily. “I don’t want anything. Right now. I just…” He pauses, and then, “No, that’s not true. I do want something. I want you to stick around. I want you to _not leave_ and run away. I want you to be my partner and figure this out with me, no matter what happens after it’s all over.”

She swallows. “When what’s all over? Our partnership? Or something else?”

He looks at her, his eyes pained, and he’s maybe as lost as she is, but he’s had time to work it out in his own head at least. “Olivia,” he says, and his voice is low, tired, calm. “This isn’t some big surprise. Not to either of us. This has been there between us for a while, even if we didn’t want to look directly at it.”

She furrows her brow and looks away from him. Even now, with so much out in the open, she doesn’t want to admit it out loud.

“Look at me,” he orders.

She bristles at the commanding tone he’s using, but when she looks at him, it takes all the fight out of her with one, sweeping blow. She sees that connection there, that knowledge that there is—has always been—something… _more_. Something deeper than partnership that they can’t control. And she sees his own recognition as he looks at her eyes, and she feels ridiculous even trying to deny it.

“I never wanted to take you away from your family,” she says, glancing away.

“It isn’t about you taking me away,” he says. “It’s about Kathy and I growing apart. It’s about us both changing over the years into different people. My family is still there, and we’ll always be a family.”

Her mouth is dry and she grabs his soda and takes a sip. It’s watery from the melted ice but cold and wet.

“Just… take some time,” he says. “Let’s just be partners and work for a while, okay? I need some time to get settled. I have to work out the divorce and get Eli into some sort of normalcy, and I’m not trying to pressure you, Liv. I don’t need anything until I get all of this sorted.”

“And then?” she asks, softly. She looks at him, and why is she always struck at the oddest times by how blue his eyes are? “What? We date? We sleep together?”

“I don’t know. What do you want?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I know what I don’t want though. I don’t want to be that woman. The one at family Christmas parties who always feels like the outsider, because she stole a husband away from his family. I don’t want to be that woman to _any_ man, Elliot, especially you. I don’t want to be that woman to your kids.”

“Olivia…”

“I can’t be the one who did that to your family,” she says, standing and gathering the sides of her jacket together. “I really can’t.”

She turns then, and he says her name again, but she’s weaving her way through the crowd and out the door, and she walks briskly to the car, half afraid she’ll feel his hand on her shoulder any moment.

But he doesn’t follow her.

* * * * *


	7. Outlier

* * * * * *

She gets quiet on him over the next few weeks. She’s not angry, exactly, but she’s not _not_ angry either, and although they work cases together, she seems lost in her own little world.

In moments where they’d talk about the department’s latest scandal or the new Chinese restaurant opening up down the street, they just sit silently. Eye contact makes her jerk away from him, and when he pulls her aside one day to talk to her privately about how to question a suspect, she sucks in her breath and her gaze goes right to his mouth. And he realizes that being alone with him has become something dangerous to her.

At first he’s offended, and then he’s more thoughtful about it, and then he’s a little turned on.

She needs time, he figures, and so he gives it to her. He has his hands full with the divorce and trying to get his life on a steadier track. It feels too precarious to him, and at the end of the day he only has so much energy left to focus.

Time moves slowly, but in his head he feels like he doesn’t have enough. When Kathy had run his life behind the scenes, everything had been locked down by the time he’d gotten home at night. He hadn’t had to deal with anything messy, especially not the past few years when they’d been growing apart so drastically. Kathy would probably say that he hadn’t had to clean up his own messes, and maybe she’d be right.

His daughters took the news about the divorce well. So well he’d been a bit alarmed, quite frankly. But Dickie was angry. Raging. He had no use for Elliot at the moment and refused to even visit him at his new apartment. Kathy had said she’d talk to him, but Elliot knew exactly what it was.

He’d been an absent father for a long time. Home, often, at night, but often not. And when he had been there, it’d been hard to get his mind off the cases. He’d been distracted. Dickie had slipped into the role of man of the house, and Elliot had let him do it, because it had made things easier. But now that Elliot was gone, Dickie felt Elliot was being ungrateful and deliberately hurting his mom.

He’s angry at himself for putting Dickie in that position. When he looks back now, he can see how it happened, and it stings.

He and Dickie had been forging a new sort of relationship after the turmoil last year when his friend had gone missing and he’d demanded that Elliot sign him into the army before he turned 18.

Jesus, that had been one of the hardest years he’d ever had with one of his kids. God, how had this happened? All he’d wanted when he’d started out was to be the sort of parent his own had never been. Instead he’d ended up with two kids who were taking years off his life each day.

Only Kathleen beat Dickie out on difficulty, and she’d been a lot better lately. She was older, true, but she took her medication and she had a new passion for psychology in college, and she was just… she was totally different now.

She’d found him in the garage a few days after they’d told all the kids at dinner that they were divorcing, and she’d been calm and pensive.

“Are you okay, dad?”

He’d looked up and been struck then by how grown-up she was. It hadn’t been that long ago that she’d been chaotic and miserable, stuck in immaturity by an illness that wouldn’t let her progress. Once she’d been treated, she’d suddenly jumped forward by leaps and bounds.

“Yeah, baby, I’m fine,” he’d said, and realized she’d been the only one who’d asked him, besides Olivia. The other kids had rallied around Kathy, and the assumption had been that he was at fault.

Shit. He couldn’t blame them.

She’d studied him then and asked, “What’s the real reason you guys are getting divorced?”

He’d been startled, and he’d looked at her, and her gaze had been steady and piercing, and _Jesus_ … she was too much like him. More than any of the other kids.

“Ahhh…” he’d hesitated. “You know, it’s just been hard the past few years. We got married really young, and people change.”

She’d simply looked at him then, and he could see the calculation in her eyes as she’d measured him. “Is there someone else?” she’d asked then, and his mouth had run dry.

She was looking at him like she already knew, and he was _sure_ that none of the kids knew the real reason, sure that Kathy would never, ever tell them. They didn’t need to know. Ever. But Kathleen, more than the others, knew Olivia. And maybe that was the key. Because Kathleen, more than the others, was just like him, and her attraction to Olivia was his as well.

Fuck.

“No,” he’d said, grateful that he didn’t have to lie, exactly. “Not right now.”

She’d lifted an eyebrow at that, and he’d wanted to talk to her, for some unfathomable reason. But he was her father, not her best friend, and if he’d been the right sort of father to begin with, maybe she’d never have had to go through all that misery she’d endured.

“There are some things you’re never going to know, Kathleen,” he’d said. Firm but quiet. “Your mom and I love you, but some parts of our marriage are our own business.”

She’d made a face then, comical, but had sighed dramatically and waved her hand. “Fine,” she’d said, and turned to walk out. But then she’d turned and said, “Daddy?”

He’d stopped wiping down the wrench in his greasy hands and looked at her.

“I think it’s okay,” she’d said, slowly. “I mean, you and mom. Life’s too short to spend it in pain.”

And she should know, he’d thought. He’d lifted one corner of his mouth and thought about getting up to hug her, but as much as she’d grown over the past year, she was still a teenager. Hugs were evil unless committed when absolutely necessary.

“Thanks, baby.” He’d smiled at her.

She’d shrugged and turned in a whirl and was gone.

It had made him realize that things can change. Even in the darkest hour before dawn, you could turn things around. And humans will adapt to anything.

* * * * *

He should have known they couldn’t hide their troubles from Cragen. Don’s always given them a long, long leash, but he’s never been totally clueless.

In Elliot’s determination to give Olivia some room to think, he realizes their distance from each other is showing. And it annoys him.

Eventually it boils over and they get into an argument in the middle of the squadroom about some misplaced paperwork, and they end up shouting things at each other that are obviously _not_ just about the reports.

“It’s not my goddamn responsibility to know where every piece of paper is, Olivia!”

She just glares coldly at him and retorts, “If it were up to you, you’d have no responsibility at all! I’d do everything!”

“Oh, bullshit!”

“No, Elliot. No bullshit! You really need to…”

She’s cut off when Cragen bursts out of his office and thunders, “You _both_ really need to get your asses in this office. Now!”

He and Olivia aim glowering looks at each other and walk slowly into the captain’s office.

Cragen drops into his chair heavily and sighs, shaking his head at them. “If I ask you what’s going on, am I just going to get the runaround?”

Elliot and Olivia don’t look at each other, but he can _feel_ her presence next to him like a high voltage wire. She’s almost humming.

He wants to say they’re fine, like he always does when they fight and people notice, but this time he’s not sure. He doesn’t know if they’re fine, and he’s not at all sure Olivia still even wants him as a partner. When the silence goes on though, and Cragen lifts one eyebrow, he realizes that he needs to take the initiative.

“Just a bad day, Captain,” he says, forcing his voice low.

Cragen looks at him. “Really? Because that bad day has been going on for weeks now.”

Olivia fidgets beside him, and he holds his breath, waiting. He has no idea what she will say, and it’s hard to stay quiet and still.

“The Mary Dunn case just got to us,” Olivia says, quietly. “We’re still working it out.”

Cragen studies both of them with a sigh. Elliot lets a silent breath out in relief when Olivia doesn’t ask for a new partner.

“We can handle it,” he adds, wanting to show his solidarity.

Cragen doesn’t look completely convinced, but then he says, “Well, whatever it is, maybe you’ll do better with a break.”

That pulls him up short and he can’t stop himself from looking at Olivia. She looks right back, her eyes surprised, and he wants to argue, but before he can, Cragen goes on.

“The seven-six needs help with a case, and they asked for an SVU detective.” He looks at Olivia. “I gave them you, Olivia.”

“Wait a minute…” Elliot starts, his anger building, but Cragen cuts him off.

“It’s temporary, Elliot,” Cragen says, in a tone of voice that indicates no protest will be accepted. “They’re short-staffed and they think they have a serial rapist preying on prostitutes. I don’t need to tell you how little press and attention those types of crimes get. The detective they have on it isn’t SVU. He’s homicide, and he’s having problems getting the girls to cooperate. They’re hoping a female SVU detective will have better luck.”

Elliot glances at Olivia, and she’s chewing the inside of her lip in thought. He realizes this is a golden opportunity for her in more ways than one, and his heart sinks.

“Olivia…” he says, still weakly protesting. She _can’t_ walk away now. Everything between them is so damn precarious.

“What?” she says, glancing up at him, her voice low. “I’m supposed to refuse?”

“Guaranteed one month,” Cragen says. “But you know how it goes. It’ll probably be all summer. I don’t know if I’m prepared to let them have you much longer than that.”

Olivia nods and says, “Okay.”

And Elliot feels the weight settle down around his shoulders again.

* * * * * *

She doesn’t look at him the rest of the afternoon. She works on getting her files in order so Fin and Munch can help him out when they need to, and she finishes her outstanding paperwork, and he seethes inside.

She’s running. Goddamn it, that’s exactly what this is. She might not be disappearing, or flying across the country, but she’s running all the same.

A niggling voice inside him asks _what was she supposed to do? Say no?_ And it’s right, but…

He’s not sure he ever really had a _plan_ , but none of this is going the way he thought it might.

He gets a little angry too. He’s been giving her space, trying to let her work it out and come to it in her own time. Now he thinks that he wants to push a bit. It’s about committing, maybe. He loves her. They’ve been together so long, he’d sort of thought it would work itself out, in his favor of course.

But sitting back and waiting for it isn’t going to work. That never, ever works with Olivia, and he should have known that from the beginning.

It’s always about the fight with her, because she’s never _not_ fighting. She fights him, the job, the criminals, her life and herself. All the time.

If he wants her, he’s gotta fight too.

Every muscle in his body tightens a bit as he watches her across their desks. He can fight. That’s one thing he _can_ do, very well.

He can fucking fight.

* * * * * *

He stays late helping her finish the file she’s working on, even though they don’t talk much. She doesn’t officially start in Brooklyn until Monday, and it’s only Wednesday, but there’s a lot to get in order before she goes.

Everyone else is gone when he walks into the locker room and leans next to her while she’s pulling her jacket and her bag from inside.

“You’re running,” he says, quietly. He tries not to make it sound like an accusation.

She doesn’t stop what’s she’s doing, but he sees her throat move as she swallows. “I am not. I’m just working in Brooklyn for a while and then I’ll be back.”

He watches her and chews at his lip for a moment and then he shakes his head. “No, Liv. This is a relief to you. You’re going to dive into that job and stay away and you think that’ll fix everything.”

She does stop then, and looks at him. “I am _not_ ,” she insists, annoyed. “What was I supposed to do, Elliot? Refuse to go? Cragen has the right to loan me out if he wants to. The department has the right to put me where they want me.”

He presses his lips together and leans back against the lockers and shakes his head again. He has to push her. “No,” he admits. “You had to go. I know. But you’re glad. You’re going to use it to stay away from me and you think I’ll just run back to Kathy and everything will be back to normal.”

Her jaw tightens and she suddenly slams her locker door shut. “Well, don’t you think we could use a little distance?”

“No!” he retorts, finding his anger as touchy as hers. He pushes away from the lockers and stands in the space between her and the door, trying to take up as much room as possible. “I think walking away now will just make it impossible! I think we’ll be strangers by the end of summer, and I’m not going to let that happen, Olivia!”

“So, what do you want?” she demands, and he can feel her nervousness, her abject terror of the situation. “You want to just fuck and get it out of the way? Then you can go on with your life and I can go on with mine and maybe we can still be partners!”

God, why does she _do_ this? Why does she go from being the closest person to him in his life to acting like he doesn’t give a shit about her?

That’s rhetorical, because he knows. He’s always known. A relationship with Olivia means overcoming a lot. It means overcoming her past, overcoming her self-protection, overcoming her compulsion to sabotage.

He suddenly steps forward and crowds her, and she’s surprised enough to take a step back and find herself cornered against the lockers. “That won’t work,” he says. He looks her right in the eyes and he challenges her. “There’s no way we could fuck just once, Olivia. Twelve years has sure as shit shown us that.”

She doesn’t have an answer for that, and she’s pressing back against the lockers and staring at him, and all he can hear in the small, silent space between them is her breathing and his, and he wonders how both of them sound out of breath.

“You’re afraid to be alone with me,” he says. She is. She’s fine when they’re on a case, but when they’re in the car, she rubs her hands nervously and refuses to look at him and she doesn’t want him to see her eyes.

She snorts at that. A disbelieving, comedic snort. But there’s that same nervousness behind her eyes.

Push.

He puts his hand behind her on the steel of a locker door and leans in even further, so they’re almost breathing each other’s air. He can smell her soap and her hairspray and he can feel his own heat building up between them. “Then just stand here, for five minutes, and be with me.”

She swallows, and the wet sound is loud in the silence. “Get off me,” she says, and she puts her hands up and pushes at his chest.

He doesn’t budge. “What are you afraid of?” he asks. “You really afraid of me, or are you afraid of yourself? Because now it’s all out there. It’s dangerous now.”

“Shut up,” she orders, and pushes a bit harder, but she’s tired, not furious.

“One little look,” he says, leaning down to make sure she meets his gaze. “ That goes on too long and it could all explode.” His voice is so low that he can feel it more than hear it.

She looks at him, and the look _does_ go on. Her dark eyes look right into him, and she’s always made his heart skip a beat when she does that. In the closeness of their bodies, he could just lean forward and feel the heat of her mouth…

She looks away from him. “Jesus… I’m going now.”

“You know damn well you feel something big for me,” he says. “And there’s nothing holding us back now.”

“ _I’m_ holding us back!” she growls, glaring at him. She pushes again, forcefully this time, and he lets her get some space between them.

He just looks at her for a moment. And then he says one word. “Don’t.”

She looks a little bewildered, a little lost. It makes him want to protect her, because that’s always his first instinct with her. But he has to push her. He has to get her out of that partner mindset, until she sees him as something more than just a partner, and 12 years has built up a lot of denial. She’s never been oblivious to him as a man or a sexual partner. He’s pretty sure of that. But she’s carefully compartmentalized it away, just like he’s done with her. And dragging it all out is going to take some effort.

Her anger drains away. He watches it go. She’s shaken, and he thinks that’s a good thing.

“El,” she says, softly, and the use of his nickname at this point makes his stomach flip slowly. “Look. _I_ need the distance, okay? I need the time. There’s been…” She swallows again. “So much happening between us over the years. It’s been so… complex. I just can’t… I don’t know how to even handle this.”

She’s not afraid of him. She trusts him still, even through his pushing, and it makes him more determined. They really are meant to be together. Christ, it pulls at him so _hard_.

“Then don’t walk away from me,” he says. “Go work in Brooklyn and have your distance, but don’t avoid me, okay?”

She pulls her jacket on and fleetingly meets his eyes, her mood somber. “I’ll try,” she offers.

He wants to tell her he loves her, but even though he’s already admitted as much, it’s not something they’re ready for. “We’re partners,” he rasps, and he knows that always gets to her. “If we lose that, and we can’t even be friends, then…” He trails away, because he doesn’t even know how to end that sentence. He doesn’t know how to even convey to her the agony that ending would produce in him.

She meets his gaze then, and he sees that same potential agony reflected in her eyes, and for a moment all he feels is the pull between them, the entirety of the 12 years they’ve bled all over one another and picked up the pieces again and again.

“I know,” she says, quietly. “It won’t be like that.”

He’s out of energy then. Tired and weary and aching, and it’s not time to push anymore.

He just nods tiredly and steps back, and she walks past him toward the door.

But he feels her fingers brush his as she goes, and he grabs at her hand, tangling their fingers for one brief moment before she’s gone.

She lets the door shut quietly after her, and he sinks down onto the bench to wait until she’s truly gone.

He just needs to think.

* * * * * *

Olivia walks into the seven-six late on Monday morning, with a box under her arm and a backpack on her shoulders. The box contains half the contents of her desk in SVU. She left her most treasured items, and her photos, waiting in Manhattan for her return. She could have taken them all, and just carted them back again. It was a small box. But that felt so… It felt too final.

And this wasn’t final.

Despite Elliot’s pushing, she’s found that when she seriously thinks about leaving him, it feels like a knife stab deep in her gut. She’s had time to settle down since talking to Kathy, and flying off to Oregon isn’t an option anymore.

Brooklyn however…

The seven-six is a small, newer building close to the navy shipyard and instead of a big open squad room; they have cubicles.

She spies the captain’s office, and finds a slim, tall black woman with an impeccable navy pants suit.

“Detective Benson,” the woman says, holding out a hand. “I’m Regina Jackson.”

Olivia smiles and shakes her hand and says, “I’m glad to be here.”

“I haven’t had time to read your file yet, but Captain Cragen told me if you can’t help us, nobody can. He has a lot of confidence in you.”

For some reason, Olivia is surprised to hear that, although it warms her face as she flushes slightly. Cragen’s praise is rarely given, and when she earns it, she feels more embarrassed than proud. “I hope I can live up to that,” she says, a little less confident.

“You’re going to need to work a lot of nights,” Jackson says. “That’s when this guy has been hitting, and it’s the best time to find the witnesses. You okay with that? If you have kids and a husband…”

“No,” Olivia says. “No kids or husband. I’m fine with nights. Whatever it takes.”

Regina Jackson gives her a pensive look. Maybe sympathetic. Not pitying, which Olivia finds a relief.

There are papers to sign and some payroll info to get straight, and then Jackson stands up and says, “I’m going to hand you off to Clayton now. He’s the detective in charge of the case, and he can fill you in much better than I can.”

“Okay.”

As they go through the office door, Jackson looks back at her with serious eyes. “I expect results, Detective.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Olivia says. She likes captains who know what they want. She can deal with that.

They walk through the maze of cubicles and take a few right turns and then suddenly they’re in a corner where two desks are at a right angle to each other, a thick bulletproof window behind them. One desk has a computer and nothing else, the other is covered in files and food wrappers, and a man is there in a faded black T-shirt and there’s a black leather jacket hanging on the back of his chair.

He turns as they walk into the space, and Jackson says, “Detective Olivia Benson, this is detective Clayton Crowder.”

And all she sees as he stands and faces her is wide shoulders, bulging biceps and clear blue eyes, and he slants her a cocky, one-sided smile that’s more a smirk than a grin, and as she’s reaching for his hand, she thinks, cautiously and reservedly, _Oh, boy._

Oh, boy.

* * * * *


	8. Displacement

* * * * *

Clayton Crowder has a sort of boyish face that fools her at first. As they shake hands and she really looks at him, she sees fine lines around his eyes and curving down his cheeks. His brown hair is shaved down close to his skull and threaded with gray. At first glance he’d seemed younger, but now she realizes he’s likely a few years older than she is.

He has vivid blue eyes and his smile is more closed than open, and she feels how reserved he is. He’s bigger than Elliot. By an inch or so in height, but his upper body is more built. His T-shirt fits loosely though, hiding most of the hard edges she guesses are there.

Jackson walks away from them, and Crowder sits again and watches as she sets her box down on the empty desk and then slings her backpack there too. She pulls the chair out and sits, and they look at each other for a moment.

“So…” he finally says in a low, slightly scratchy voice. “SVU huh?”

She nods. “SVU.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t imagine it. The kids would kill me.”

She shrugs. “It’s not for everyone.”

He lifts one eyebrow. “Well, I’m glad someone does it so I don’t have to.”

She gives him a faint smile, and he studies her silently again for another moment. “You the low man on the totem pole or something? That why you pulled this assignment?”

She narrows her eyes at him. “No,” she retorts. She can’t quite read him, and she isn’t sure what to expect. He’s probably either a preening muscle-head cop or a rogue. Of course, that’s what she’d thought about Elliot when she’d first met him too. “Maybe they sent me because I’m the best.”

He grins at that. A wide, wolfish grin that makes his blue eyes glitter. A whole lot like Elliot, and she shifts uncomfortably.

“Well,” he says, smirking. “We’ll see.”

Without taking his eyes off her, he motions around the office with his pen. “Coffee is over there, filing cabinets are there, printer in that corner, lockers are behind that far wall. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Good. I’ll give you an overview, but you’ll have to read the files to get the whole picture.”

“Alright.”

“I’ll go down and get them for you. You work on your desk.”

She watches him leave and then sags back in her chair and sighs. Jesus. He doesn’t really remind her of Elliot that much, so she’s not sure why she keeps comparing them. There are five hundred guys in the NYPD who have brown hair and blue eyes and muscles. Elliot shouldn’t even stand out the way he does, but…

Well, he’s Elliot. To her, he’ll always stand out, she guesses.

She starts emptying her box, and it’s mostly innocuous things. The pens she likes to use and some of her resource books, her book of phone numbers. She didn’t bring any of her photos. Those say too much about where her home is, and while she’s always been able to adapt, always felt a little homeless when it comes right down to it, SVU is still her home. SVU and her partner.

She swallows, because she hasn’t spent one moment of the past few weeks in perfect peace. Even focusing on cases, which is the closest she comes to normal, isn’t quite enough to really shut out her turmoil over Elliot.

He’s right. She is afraid. Not of him, because she never could be. But of herself, and what she wants, and what she thinks she should want, and what she thinks is right, and it’s just all so overwhelming.

After their confrontation in the locker room, the last two days before her new assignment had been quiet. He’d apparently said what he’d wanted to say, and then he’d fallen back into his role as her partner, and he hadn’t mentioned it again.

That Friday night, as she’d pulled her jacket on to leave, he’d looked up from his desk with a carefully concerned expression and said, “Be careful, Liv.”

He’d been restraining himself, and she’d felt it. In the way he looked at her and the way he’d controlled his expression and the way his muscles had silently flexed as he’d made a fist with one hand and gripped it tightly with the other, elbows on his desktop.

All of it had spoken of his affection for her, and his respect, and she’d felt a pang of regret so deep it had almost made her suck in her breath. Because she’d suddenly wanted to stay. Because how _could_ she leave? He was her partner. They’d been through hell together, and, yeah, sometimes things got messy between them and sometimes they had feelings they weren’t supposed to have, but there was nothing they couldn’t face together.

But she’d also been sure that this distance was a good thing, and she didn’t really have a choice. Not really.

She sighs and sets her empty box off to the side, and Crowder comes back carrying a cardboard file box with the name Holy Roller written on it in black marker.

She lifts an eyebrow.

He sets it down on her desk with a heavy _thump_ and she tries not to look at his biceps as they bulge from the effort.

“We’ve only gotten three of the girls to confide in us about their rapes,” he says, pulling his chair over and sitting down as he flips the lid off the box. “Most of them won’t even report it when it happens, because they know the odds of being taken seriously. The problem is, there’s also another seven missing.”

“How do you know?” she asks, because street workers are notoriously nomadic. There one day, gone the next, moved on to more fertile ground.

“I got one girl to trust me. Leila. She told me. At first, girls were being raped and then beaten and dumped back on the street. And she knew a few of them, so I managed to at least get two of them to confirm, although they refused to file a report. But after that, girls just started going missing, and we’ve had one turn up dead, although we haven’t been able to connect any of this.” He gives her a sober look. “Unfortunately, Leila is one of the girls who went missing, only two weeks ago. The rest don’t trust me.”

Olivia stares at him. “So, you might actually have a serial killer?”

He nods. “You can see why we want to get this under control.”

She’s a little shocked. Serial killers are big-ticket items, even in New York City. They’re good for a lot of press and are usually handled by the high-fashion detectives and the brass with stars in their eyes. She leans forward and looks at Crowder intensely. “No offense, but… they’re letting you handle this? Does the brass know about it?”

He shrugs. “None taken, and yeah, they know. But there isn’t enough evidence to suggest a serial killer at this point, and it’s prostitutes who won’t even file a complaint. They aren’t going to lift a finger until I bring them something concrete.”

He has a point. “You have a point,” she says.

“I’d rather have a killer in jail,” he says.

She looks at him then, and he looks genuine. He doesn’t feel like a cop, even sitting in the middle of a police station. Everything about him feels outlaw.

“Did you used to work narcotics?” she asks suddenly, because those guys are always outlaws. They’re like bikers with a badge. Especially the undercover guys.

He lifts one brow then and says, “Yeah.” He frowns at her. “Undercover ops for four years before my face became too known.”

She grins then. “Yeah,” she says. “Figures.”

He gives her that cocky, sarcastic smirk again. “Aren’t you the sharpest tool in the shed, Benson. Fucking A.”

She laughs.

Yeah, she thinks. She and Crowder will get along okay.

* * * * *

The day ends peacefully. They don’t do much. They spend the morning summarizing the case, and then in the afternoon, he takes her out for a ride in the squad, and he shows her the area.

She takes the file box home and starts reading in earnest. It’s a welcome distraction to her own life.

Three women who will confirm rape, one of them being Leila, Clayton’s insider. All were beaten afterwards and say the man wore a wool stocking cap and a bandaid over his nose, which made identity difficult. White man, possibly in early 30’s is the best they can do.

He also grew angry after the sex and then ranted about sin and salvation and God’s word, which is why Clayton labeled the case ‘Holy Roller’.

Well. They’ve had enough of those over the years. It was always God telling men to kill prostitutes. It was all about doing the world a favor.

Christ.

Huang always told them it was more about the killer being inadequate. He wants to kill women in general, but prostitutes are more vulnerable. Easier to grab. He’s not comfortable going after more secure women. He could be inexperienced, or have extremely low self-esteem, or maybe there’s something wrong with him that makes regular women shy away. He can’t get close.

But the religious stuff…

She makes a note to talk to George in a few days when she has a better handle on the case. She’s worked enough religious fervor cases over her career, not to mention serial killings, but she’s still not a profiler, even as much as she’s learned.

Her phone buzzes as she’s putting the files away for the night, and when she glances at it, she sees Elliot’s name. Her stomach flips a bit.

“Hey,” she says, quietly, answering it.

“So,” he starts, without saying hello. “Is Brooklyn enough distance for you? Can I stop worrying about you taking off on me?”

“Elliot…” she chastises.

“Sorry,” he apologizes grudgingly, and she doesn’t hear any real malice in his voice.

“This case could be big,” she tells him, and she hears the trepidation in her own voice. “It’s a lot more complex than Cragen made it sound.”

“Yeah?” he asks, and immediately his voice is all business. “Is it bad? Shit, Olivia, you be fucking careful!”

“It’s bad,” she says. “I’m still catching up, but it has all the red flags of a serial.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and she can almost hear him thinking about it. She doesn’t want to tell him too much, but her first instinct is to tell him everything. To let him help her work it out.

“If shit goes bad,” he says. “Could you go down for it?”

“I don’t know,” she answers honestly. “You know how it goes with cases involving prostitutes.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

She feels reassured that they can do this. That they can be awkward about their personal feelings one minute, but slip back into partner mode the next. It’s maybe the reason they’ve been able to stay partners for 12 years.

He breathes slowly. “Olivia, I mean it. Be careful. I hear the guy you’re working with is kind of a hard case.”

She snorts at that. “Yeah, he is. Just like someone else I know.”

He snorts right back. “You’re way more of a rebel than I’ve ever been. I just hit things occasionally.”

She smiles almost wistfully at that, and then she feels ridiculous. For God’s sake, it’s only been _one day_. And she’s still confused about this whole divorce thing. She needs the distance!

“I’m fine,” she says, suddenly. “If that’s why you’re calling.”

He huffs out a half laugh and says, “Yeah, well... I just… wanted to see how your first day went.”

“It was fine,” she says. “Interesting.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and she listens to him breathe. The sound is so familiar. It’s almost… soothing. She hears nothing in the background and wonders if he’s at home or still at the office.

“Look,” he says, quietly. “I’m not going to let you stay out of touch. And… if you need something, you know you can call me, right? No matter what.”

She leans back against the sofa back and presses the heel of one hand into her eye, easing the burn of reading for too long. He makes her ache. In good ways and in bad. In hot ways and in cold.

He just makes her ache.

“I know,” she says. In a way that she knows infers tacit approval.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll talk to you later.” His voice is way too low. Too rough. It sends sparks along the edges of her nerves.

She swallows and nods, and then she says, “Okay” back, and then she hangs up.

In the silence of her apartment, even as her weariness grows, those sparks refuse to go out.

* * * * *

The next few days immerse her.

She learns the area around the 76th, and she gets used to the precinct, and she starts calling Crowder ‘Clay’. She still doesn’t get quite an accurate read on him, and he’s reserved with the personal information. But he’s not a slacker. He reminds her of all those old, gritty cop movies, where they dress in jeans and sweatshirts and ride around in huge, rusted gas-guzzling cars, and they always get the bad guy in the end.

She hopes that stays true in real life.

Seven girls are missing that they know of. Well, six, with one confirmed dead. She sees the autopsy photos and reads the reports, and Clay takes her to where the body was found. Nothing’s left, and there wasn’t much there when it counted either.

“He posed her,” Clay tells her. “Laid her out like Jesus on the cross.”

Olivia thinks about that, and tries not to see Elliot’s tattoo. She always feels so removed from religion. And yet so drawn to it.

The girls in Brooklyn are like the girls in Manhattan, and she and Clay work until late at night a few days so they’re around when the business is happening. The girls all dress in shorts and tank tops, even though it’s still May and the nights are cold. Olivia dresses down and leaves Clay in the car and walks among them.

They don’t run from her and she shows them photos of the missing girls, and they rarely remember because they don’t want to remember. She doesn’t blame them. They all have lives they used to lead until fate brought them here, and she understands that. One week ago she was riding in Manhattan, another day, another dollar, another day with Elliot trying to push it all away.

They don’t run from her, but they don’t trust her either, and she has to take some time for that. Time building it up.

“Look,” she says. “We want to find them. Not because we want to arrest them, but because they might be in trouble. If someone is out there who wants to hurt you, we need to know. We can help.”

“Always someone out there wants to hurt us,” a girl named Lucy says. “Please.” Sarcastic.

“Ain’t seen you out here before,” another girl says, suspiciously. “I know all the cops.”

“They brought me in special,” Olivia says. “Just for you.”

Lucy raises one eyebrow, and smirks a bit. She’s wearing a lot of make-up and is tall and skinny. She has long black hair, bronze skin, dark eyes. She doesn’t look away when Olivia meets her gaze. Strong.

“Our own personal cop,” Lucy says, laughing. “How about that.”

“I’ll be back,” Olivia says. “I’ll be around. I’ll help you.”

They just wave at her, and Olivia knows it’s going to take some time. She walks back to Clay and the car, parked down the street.

“Jesus,” she says, slipping into the passenger seat. “They’re some hard cases.”

“We had that scandal a few years back,” Clay says. “Cops making them give sexual favors as payment for protection.”

Olivia winces. “I remember that.”

“They made it tougher on all of us.”

Olivia shakes her head. “It’s bad enough we have to fight against the bad guys. When you gotta watch your back in your own department too… damn.”

“I’ll tell you something,” Clay says, pointing through the windshield to the darkness and lights beyond. “You crack Lucy, you’ll open it all up for us. She’s protects the others. They look up to her. Even her pimp is scared of her.”

Olivia glances out at the girls, picking Lucy’s tall form towering above the others. She sighs. “Got my work cut out for me then.”

Clay smirks. “Did you think it’d be a cake-walk?”

“No, but I’d hoped.”

They stay parked and watch for a while. Clay hands her a bottle of water, and asks, “What made you want to work SVU?”

And she mentally stumbles a bit, trying to decide how much she wants to tell him. Her past is not a secret, but it’s not something she talks about lightly either.

“My mother was raped,” she says, and she leaves it at that.

Clay’s head jerks around to face her. “Shit,” he says, softly. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. It was a long, long time ago. But she never got completely over it. It really affected me growing up. I couldn’t help her as a kid, and I still can’t help her now, but I can help other women, other kids.”

“How is she now?”

Olivia swallows. “She died almost ten years ago.”

“Shit. Sorry again. My parents are both dead. They were older when they had me. My dad went when I was ten, but my mom lived until I was 25.”

She gives him a tight smile, and he breathes deeply. “Right,” he says. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“You married?” she asks, glancing at his chest. He wears a leather cord around his neck with a ring hanging from it. It’s usually under his shirt, but tonight it lies openly against his chest and glints in the light.

His hand automatically goes to the ring, fisting around it protectively. “Ahhh,” he starts. He looks away from her. “No, not technically. She died about five years ago.”

“Shit,” she swears. “Sorry.” And then they both laugh a bit at the similarity of their reactions tonight.

“Cop?” Olivia asks. It’s the first thing she thinks of.

He shakes his head. “She was a nurse.” He grins. “I know… there’s a whole cliché about nurses and cops. We like having someone take care of us when we go home.”

Olivia smirks. “Hey, if it works…”

“She got cancer about ten years ago. It kept coming back, and she finally couldn’t fight it anymore.”

She can feel the pain radiating outward from him, despite his carefully schooled, rigid expression. “I’m really sorry,” she says. “That’s rough.”

He nods and stares out the window, and she can tell he’s five years in the past at the moment, and barely with her at all.

She gives him time and watches the girls silently. When he breaks out of it, he says, “So now, I mostly try and keep busy. I work, and that’s all I wanna do, you know?”

She nods then, and says, “Yeah, I know.” Because she does. She knows exactly how that is.

She knows.

* * * * * *

For a few days all she really does is learn the case and walk the streets, learning the girls. They do react differently to her than they do to Clay, and she figures that has everything to do with power. She is a cop, but she is female, and the threat is less. She’s had experience too, and she knows to be honest.

It will take time.

Clay, for his part, drops back and lets her do things her way.

“We’ve got nothing but time this summer,” he says, but she can see the tightness in the corners of his mouth. Nothing but time, but too much time means more death.

On Friday they decide to work the evening shift. Get out and have a look around as the city gears up for the weekend. She comes in after lunch, and she and Clay get busy with the paperwork. When he runs for coffee, she rubs her eyes and leans back in her chair and feels the isolation of her life creeping up on her.

The weight of the new case is sinking down, finally, as she gets more invested.

“Bad week?” she hears, and the familiar rasp of the voice sends her stomach falling.

She turns, eyes wide. “Elliot?”

He smiles at her from over the top of the divider that makes up her and Clay’s cubicle.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, and it’s odd, the way he looks different. One week working with a temporary partner, and already her eyes roam over Elliot and find new things. Has he lost weight? He’s clean-shaven. His eyes are so blue… Not bright or true blue, but that stormy, muted blue, just enough to take you by surprise.

He shrugs and says, “A witness we need works at the shipyard. Thought I’d drop by and see how you were getting along without me.” He looks at Clay’s empty desk and then around the room. “Where’s your new partner?”

She slants him a wry look. “He’s not my new partner. He’s just temporary.”

Elliot meets her gaze, and he says nothing, but his eyes express their doubt. He doesn’t blink and he doesn’t look away, and his intensity gets to her. She glances down.

One week. And she can feel the distance there. Just a little bit. Just enough to make him feel… dangerous.

Suddenly she wonders if grasping at this opportunity really was the wisest choice. That lack of distance between them was strangely what kept them strong. And apart. It had made it impossible to see him as anything but her married partner. Now…

Now, that barrier is gone.

There are steps, and when she looks up again, Clay is walking into the cubicle, coffee cups in hand, his eyes straying curiously to Elliot. “Benson, you cheating on me already?” he asks, and when she looks at him, she can see he obviously knows exactly who Elliot is and that he is teasing her. She rolls her eyes at him.

Elliot just lifts his eyebrows though, and then stands up straight, and she sees his shoulders go back and his chin tilt up, and she thinks _Oh, boy_ , the same way she did with Clay.

“Clay, this is my partner, Elliot Stabler.”

Clay nods at him and hands her a tall, foam coffee cup. “So,” he says. “You’re Stabler.”

Elliot eyes him. “Yeah,” he says, and it’s not unfriendly, although it’s not overly eager either.

They shake hands.

Olivia finds herself inexplicably nervous, and she’s not sure why. She isn’t involved romantically, technically, with either of them. But Elliot has always been protective…

“You want her back already?” Clay teases.

“Yeah,” Elliot says. “Actually. But it isn’t up to me.”

Clay must see that humor won’t sit right, because he changes tactics. He claps Elliot on the shoulder and says, “I’m glad, because I need the help. She’s already gotten farther in one week than I did in a month.”

Elliot glances at her, but can’t seem to help the faint touch of pride in his voice when he says, “Yeah, she’s good that way.”

“She’s also sitting right here,” she interjects dryly.

Clay drops into his chair and pries the tab up on the lid of his coffee before taking a sip.

Elliot leans awkwardly against their tall file cabinet, and she takes a deep breath.

“Any tips on how to handle her?” Clay asks, and she sees his gaze flicker toward her with amusement. She thinks about kicking him.

“Hell no,” Elliot says. “Figure it out yourself. I had to.”

She laughs at that, despite herself, and Elliot’s gaze slides over her, his lips upturned slightly in a pleased smile, his eyes smoldering a little. He gets his bearings then, and folds his arms over his chest and balances against the file cabinet, and he’s all confidence and imposing presence.

“I think that was more me figuring out how to handle you,” she protests.

“Bullshit,” he says, sort of softly. “You had me figured out on day one.”

She feels warmth when she looks at him. He’s her partner. Twelve years together of the lowest lows she’s ever felt, and the highest highs she’s ever had.

“Well,” Clays says, swinging around in his chair. “Give me time. I’ll figure her out.”

She makes a ‘try it’ face at him, and he throws the little bit of wadded up receipt from their coffee at her. She bats it away.

Elliot glances at his watch and says, “Well, I’ll let you guys go. There’s a meeting tonight about the twins graduation. I told Kathy I’d be there.”

“They’re graduating, that’s right,” Olivia says, and she feels awe at first. Amazed that the little kids she met when she’d first started in SVU were all grown up and graduating high school now. Soon to be going to college.

And then she remembers why their dad isn’t living with them anymore. Why he has to meet his family there instead of going with them. And she feels the warmth fade from her blood. She falls silent.

“They’re fine,” Elliot says, cryptically, although she knows it’s aimed at her and that he’s reading her mind again.

She glances at him and gives him a tight-lipped smile, and Clay shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “So,” Clays says. “You got any last warnings to impart before you go? Might as well get those out of the way.”

Elliot actually grins at that. He’s always respected a straight-shooter, she thinks.

He pushes off from the file cabinet and stands up straight and says, “Yeah. You let her get shot, and I’ll hogtie you and throw you off one of the South Street piers.”

Clay grins right back, and then he shrugs. “And rightfully so.”

They lock gazes for a moment, and she almost tells them to knock it off, but then Elliot’s gaze shifts to her and he says, “See you, Liv.” But his eyes go much deeper than that, and she isn’t sure what she’s showing in her own eyes, but she doesn’t look away until he turns.

* * * * *

They go out and walk through the streets and the sunset turns the city red, like an inferno. And it’s been a long time since she’s worked like this. Since she’s worn faded jeans that don’t fit quite right and the old olive army fatigue jacket she’d bought in college. It’s big on her, less big then it was in college, but it still swallows her shoulders and the sleeves fall to her fingertips. She tries to fade into the sidewalks and become just another invisible face in the crowd. Next to her, Clay is in jeans and old army boots, and that black leather jacket that was hanging on the back of his chair is beat to hell and scraped raw in places, and for the first time she sees the tip of a tattoo on the back of his neck.

“What is that?” she asks, touching the spot, right above his collar. His skin is warm in the cooling night, and he bends his neck forward, giving her access.

“A reminder,” he says. “To always stay on the right path.”

And she wants to see it, so he pulls her into an alley between an adult video store and a cheap bodega, and in the red glow of the neon lights, he turns away from her and slides his jacket off, then reaches back over his head, pulling his shirt up.

Her breath stops in her throat.

It’s a huge tattoo, covering his entire back. An angel with long, wispy hair and beautiful musculature is stretched out, his foot on the head of a demon, his hand on a spear that stretches over his head, a cross on the end. It is the tip of the cross that she’d seen poking out of his collar. The angel’s wings spread across Clay’s shoulders, and the technique seems like a painting. Black shading with hints of red blended in. She can’t see the fine detail, but she can tell it’s spectacular.

“Jesus…” she breathes.

She has to touch it, and it feels warm under her fingers. She can feel the slightly raised outline of the spear, but the rest lies flat. Clay stands quietly, his back moving with his breath.

“It’s Michael,” he tells her. “Defeating Satan.”

She frowns a little. “Are you religious?” she asks. He hadn’t seemed the type, but then neither did Elliot.

He pulls his shirt back down and swings his jacket around to slide his arms into the sleeves. “Not in a conventional sort of way,” he says. “Maybe more… in spirit. Sarah got it for me for my birthday one year.” Sarah is his dead wife.

“Ah,” she says. “Well, it’s beautiful work.”

“Thanks.” He smiles at her. “Have I surprised you yet?”

She snorts. “Quite frankly, you’ve been nothing but surprises.”

He grins. “I try.”

She shakes her head as he walks in front of her, her eyes drawn to that spot of black where the tip of the tattooed spear lies on his nape.

He intrigues her. He isn’t anything like she imagined, if she imagined anything at all. And she feels a strange kinship with him, that both of them are alone and dedicated to the job. Neither of them have made a lot of friends, either in the department or out.

He’s handsome, certainly, and she feels an attraction, but not in any sort of urgent way. Elliot is too deeply entrenched inside of her for that. Starting something new when she’s barely scratched the surface of working out her feelings on Elliot would be the epitome of carelessness. That is one thing she’s extremely sure of.

A late bout of rain thins the crowds, and they walk hurriedly to the car to take shelter and dry off.

“It’s pretty late,” Clay says. “Why don’t we get out of here.”

“Yeah,” she says, starting to yawn. “I think I’m about done.”

“How about a few beers to help you sleep?” he asks. When she hesitates, he adds, “I’ll pay for your cab home.”

She smiles. “Okay then.”

* * * * *

“So,” Clay says, when they’re finally dry and seated in Reggie’s Pub with a pitcher of beer between them. “What the hell was up with your partner this afternoon?”

She almost winces at that, but instead takes a long drink of the icy cold beer and ignores the burn as it slides warmly down her throat. She licks the foam from her lips and shrugs, shaking her head. “He was just checking you out.”

“He do that with all the guys you work with?”

She pushes a hand through her hair and smiles, faintly. “Pretty much.”

He looks at her for a long, silent moment. “You okay with that?”

She takes another drink. “We look out for each other,” she says, and she knows she’s sounding a little defensive, but that’s how it is. It’s how they are.

Clay nods slowly and takes a long drink from his own glass. Without looking at her, he says, “It’s just that… It seemed like it was getting a little personal there for a moment.”

She licks her lips and twists her glass through the condensation on the tabletop, trying to decide how to answer. “We’ve been partners for twelve years,” she finally says. “It is personal.”

“You sure there isn’t a reason you got assigned to me?”

She looks up then, right into his eyes, and she keeps her gaze hard.

He takes a breath and suddenly nods. “Okay. Sorry.”

She doesn’t completely trust him yet, especially not in a personal way, but she likes him. The few personal conversations they’ve had over the past few days have proven that they’re very alike. He isn’t the sort of cop who spends his time gossiping with other cops, and she can feel that he’s genuinely worried about the women he’s trying to protect.

And he trusted her with the story about his wife, even if it had been general information that he’d likely tell most people who asked.

Still… she’s rarely had anyone who understood both her job and her personal life at the same time. Only Elliot. And since her personal problems now _involve_ Elliot, that puts her understanding-friends quantity at a big, fat zero.

“It’s…” she starts, and he looks at her and waits, patiently. She tries to figure out how to explain it to him, and it becomes overwhelming. How do you explain twelve years of partnership with Elliot to someone else? How do you unwind twelve years of fear and anger and happiness and relief and sorrow and love and lust and frustration and sex and hopelessness and hope and just… everything? “It’s complicated,” she finally says, quietly. And she’s never found a better word for it.

 _It’s complicated._

“Okay,” he says. “So maybe you needed some time to figure it out.”

“Maybe,” she agrees.

“You’ll fit right in,” he says. “I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell is going on for years.”

She laughs a little.

He holds his glass up. “Here’s to a summer of deep, dark secrets and personal growth. “She makes a face, and he laughs. “I know, it sucks. We’re still going to toast it.”

She considers him a moment and then lifts her glass and tilts it against his. As she drinks she meets his eyes over the top of her glass and smiles.


	9. Force

* * * * * *

The graduation ceremony goes smoothly.

Dickie is talking to him again, even if they aren’t quite back to the old joking around and playing basketball. To be honest, he’s pretty sure Dickie never much liked the basketball anyway. He’d gone along with it because Elliot had loved it, and it was a way to get out of the house and spend time together.

He sits in the audience with Kathy, bursting with pride for his kids, and he feels like, as parents, they did a few things right anyway. Not that it wasn’t difficult, but they made it through.

The speeches drone on.

He’s wearing his good suit, one that Kathy hadn’t allowed him to wear to work. She’d wanted one suit not tainted by the pain and horror of his work, and he’d agreed. There is nothing attached to these clothes other than church and his kids and relatives’ weddings.

Kathy’s always bought his clothes for him. She seemed to like doing it, and he didn’t particularly care so much what he wore. Especially for work.

He remembers though, the way he used to feel when Liv would get called in to work in the middle of a date. She’d show up with shiny hair and jewelry and slippery dresses that made him think of the words ‘smooth’ and ‘soft’ and all of those things that made him warm. He’d be desperate to _smell_ her, to let that fire his imagination, and then he’d cruelly shut it down in his mind, angry at himself for being weak.

It hasn’t happened a lot over the past few years. Either Liv dates less or she stops home to change. He knows she still wears dresses and still has the power to make his mind wander. He’s watched her dress up for Dick and for Dean and plenty of guys who aren’t him. But he wonders now, freely, what it would be like if she did dress up for him. What a date with Olivia is like.

He thinks that there’s a proper way to do this. That you’re supposed to end one relationship, have a suitable mourning period and then you start another one. Going from one straight to another is cursed and frowned upon.

But he and Liv are different. They haven’t just met. They’ve been… involved for years.

Jesus. He catches himself with a flash of guilt before remembering that he’s allowed now. He can think about her without fearing he’ll be found out.

He can’t sit back and do nothing now. Not like last time.

He is wary too, of waiting too long to bring it all to a head. And maybe that’s fear on his part. Fear that she’ll find a way to slip out from under him and she’ll go finally. Away.

He can’t let that happen.

* * * * *

He settles in at the house during the graduation party. Once upon a time, before the shit went down, Olivia would have been here. He knew she wouldn’t come so he hadn’t bothered suggesting it. He thinks too that although Kathy says she puts the blame fully on him and herself, bringing Olivia in would probably be a little much.

He realizes then that this is what Olivia has been afraid of all along.

As protective as she’s always been about his family, happy to see him happy, the fallout from this will inevitably put her in an awkward, depressing position. Regardless of blame.

It deflates him for a moment as he’s packing more beer into a cooler in the garage to bring into the party.

 _It’s your life_ , he thinks. _Kids learn to adapt, like everyone else._ And his kids aren’t really kids so much anymore, except for Eli. And he’ll have a different life than the rest. Will that be better or worse?

He just doesn’t know.

Kathy has told their friends and relatives about the divorce, although he trusts that she’s kept the details vague.

When he walks back into the house, he slips back into his new role with Kathy. Friends raising the same kids. She is happier now. Even he can see that. It stings, but it’s a relief as well.

When the party’s over, he stays to help clean up. It feels like old times, and it feels different too.

Before he leaves he goes to find Dickie. He’s in his room, and Elliot squeezes his shoulder.

“I know it’s been tough, Dickie, but I want you to know how proud I am of you.”

Dickie glances at him and shifts in his chair. “It’s Rich now, Dad. How many times do I have to tell you?”

Damn it. He keeps forgetting. His son will always be Dickie to him, not Richard or Rich or anything else. At one time he’d have steam-rolled right over the protest and insisted on calling him Dickie. Now he sighs and says, “Sorry.” Quietly.

They exist in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, and Elliot finally says, “I know you’re still upset, but this is your last summer before NYU. I’d like to spend some time with you.”

Dickie—Rich—sighs, and then seems to sag a bit. “Mom told me this is what she wants and that things are going to be better for everyone and that I don’t have to worry about her. Or you.”

“It’s true. And I’ll always be available to take care of your mom—or you—whenever you need me. No matter what.”

Rich looks a little disgruntled but he sighs again. “Yeah,” he says, grudgingly. “I know.” He looks up at Elliot. “But I’m still a little mad. I want you to know that.”

“Okay,” Elliot says. He feels hopeful suddenly. “That’s okay. You have a right.”

Rich plays with a pen on his desk. “Did this happen because of Olivia?” he suddenly asks, and Elliot tries desperately to school his expression.

“Why do you think that?” he demands, rather than answering.

Rich knows exactly what he’s doing, and he aims a frustrated expression toward Elliot. “Like it wasn’t obvious, dad. Shit.”

“Don’t swear,” Elliot says. And then, “This wasn’t Olivia’s fault. This was my fault. Your mom and I have a lot of issues. It isn’t about one thing. Sometimes people grow apart. Especially when they marry so young.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rich mutters. He looks up. “But you’re in love with her, aren’t you.” It isn’t a question.

Elliot doesn’t know if his son is deliberately trying to rile him up or if he honestly wants to know. He also has no idea what to say. He clears his throat nervously. “Olivia and I have been through a lot,” he finally says. “It’s… complicated.”

Rich raises one eyebrow at him.

“That’s all you’re getting,” Elliot says crossly. “You have a lot more important things to worry about than my love life.”

Rich smirks at that, and Elliot grimaces.

“Look,” Elliot says. “Liz is going away to that camp for the next month. I know you want to spend some time with your friends, but how about spending a few nights with me? We can do whatever you want.”

He thinks about this. “Can we go to Atlantic City?” he asks.

Elliot frowns. “What,” he says. “You’re a gambler now?” He isn’t even old enough to get into the casinos, for God’s sake.

Rich shrugs. “They have an air show there, in August. And since we missed the New York one last weekend…”

Elliot feels a little guilty. “Oh. Yeah. Sure. You tell me when it is, and I’ll get the tickets.”

“Okay.”

He’d wondered if Dickie—Rich—would still want to join the military after he graduated, but it hadn’t come up again. He’d applied to NYU and been accepted, and he was going to start out with general classes until he decided on a major.

Rich yawns then, and Elliot pushes off the wall to leave. “Come and stay with me next weekend,” he says.

Rich sighs and waves his hand. “Fine, dad. I’ll come and sleep on your floor. Liz says you have some epic dust balls under your futon.”

Elliot frowns at that. Jesus, was he supposed to dust under his futon? That part of his floor is covered. Shouldn’t it stay clean? Huh. “I’ll sweep,” he says.

“Okay,” Rich says in over-dramatic resignation.

Elliot smiles and steps toward the bedroom door. When he looks back, Rich is staring pensively at a band poster on his wall.

“Hey,” Elliot says. Rich looks at him. “Olivia wasn’t responsible for this. You need to know that. This is about me. And your mother. Nothing else.”

And that’s true in a way. Even though Olivia’s name was mentioned, it wasn’t about her. It wasn’t anything she did or didn’t do. It was about him. His feelings and his loyalty and his relationship with Kathy.

“Olivia means a lot to me,” he continues. “I’m not going to lie about that. But she never did anything to threaten this family or your mom. Ever. We didn’t do anything wrong. You need to believe that, because she’s a part of my life. And I want us all to be happy. You, your mom, your sisters and brother, me. And Olivia. Okay?”

Rich stares down at the floor and rubs his hands together nervously and then he nods slowly without speaking.

Elliot decides that it’s the best he’s going to get for now. He can hope for more later. He closes the door behind him and jogs down the stairs to the living room. Kathy isn’t there, but Liz gives him a hug and he promises to take her out to dinner before she leaves for camp, and then he slips out the front door and heads for his jeep.

For the first time in a while, he’s feeling optimistic. It isn’t perfect yet. It never will be. And it’ll probably still be rough going for a while, both with his family and with Olivia. But he finally feels like he’s moving again. Like he’s not just standing still and waiting for life to happen to him.

He’s finally moving in the right direction.

* * * * * *

When he gets home and turns on the TV, the news is on and he stands and stares.

Nick Dunn has been found guilty of first-degree murder and will be sentenced to prison.

His feelings are mixed. There is tremendous relief that the case succeeded, especially without Mary’s body to prove a death had been committed. But also regret. And he thinks this is one of those cases that will nag him until he dies. Mary did everything she was supposed to do. It was the system that failed her. If he and Olivia had proven the case against Nick for rape, Nick would have gone away then and Mary would have been safe.

They show film of Mary’s mother leaving the courthouse, and clips of Mary’s children, now in the custody of her sister. All he feels is sadness. It isn’t anything he hasn’t seen before, but sometimes cases hit him strangely.

He turns the sound down and sits for awhile, letting the silence envelop him. And then he picks up the phone.

She answers on the first ring. “Hey,” she says. She knows it’s him. Of course she would. Her phone would show his name as it rang.

“Hey, Liv,” he says, quietly. “Did you see?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Guilty on all counts. What a relief.”

He makes a sound of agreement and then they fall silent. He can hear the tinny, distant sound of her TV through the phone.

“We should be happy about this,” he says finally. He says it knowing that neither of them really is.

“We should have had him,” she answers, softly. “We should have put him away. We gave him the chance to finish the job and he took it.”

Now he wants to comfort her, which is odd, because her pain in this matter is his pain too, and he doesn’t want to be comforted. He’s angry at himself. “We didn’t miss anything,” he says. “Damn it, Liv. I _know_ it.”

“Well, we must have,” she says. “No one commits a perfect crime. It doesn’t exist. There was something there, no matter how small. We had to have missed it.”

They both know that sometimes it doesn’t work out. Sometimes you can go over everything a thousand times with a fine-toothed comb and it still isn’t enough. Sometimes you’re going to just lose.

But it’s hard.

He lets a long, slow breath out. “This one is going to stay with me,” he says. “I can feel it.”

“Me too,” she says, so softly that her voice rasps a bit. “I just want to know where she is. At least that.”

He rubs his fingers and thumb over his closed eyelids and then leans back tiredly and says, “Yeah.” They’re silent for a while, and then he asks, “How’s your case going?”

Her phone creaks as she shifts and she says, “It’s not going anywhere right now. All I’m doing is going over case files and talking to the girls on the street.”

He sighs, quietly. “It’s going to be a long one,” he says, resigned.

“It’s not simple,” she agrees. “You miss me already?” she adds, and he can hear the way she’s trying to lighten the mood, but he wonders too if maybe there’s something else there. If maybe she’s trying to feel him out with… other things.

He takes a chance. “I want my partner back,” he says, seriously. “I work better with you than without you.”

He hears her swallow and she doesn’t answer at first, and then she breathes and says, “And yet you want to change everything.”

He marvels a little over how she’s much more willing to go there with him when they’re on the phone. Face-to-face, he supposes, is just a little too heavy. Too immediate. She needs the distance to settle her nerves.

“Because it could change into something better,” he says. “Something more.”

“We’re _good_ as partners,” she says.

He is focused on her voice, on his phone, like it is his lifeline. He closes his eyes to shut out the rest of the world. “We’ll always be good like that,” he replies. Softly. “Always, Liv. We’re never going to lose that. But we could be something else too.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” she says. “You have to choose.”

“Then give us a chance to make a decision.”

“We can’t go back,” she protests. “If we screw it up, Elliot, everything goes bad. We won’t have _anything_.”

He is torn. She has accepted that he and Kathy are over, that his marriage is not an issue anymore, but now they’ve run smack into the next issue, and they’ve barely even seen each other in weeks. “You don’t know that.”

“I don’t have to know. The risk is enough.”

He thinks about Gitano, and the time after, in the hospital.

 _You and this job are the only things I have left anymore. I don’t want to wreck that._

Now, she’s saying the same thing to him. Irony’s a bitch.

“Things have already changed, Olivia,” he says, quietly. “They aren’t changing back.”

He hears her words stick in her throat. She wants to say something, but she can’t. She struggles and then falls silent.

“I didn’t plan on any of this,” she finally says, sounding helpless.

“I know,” he says. “Me either.”

“Then why do you seem so determined?” she asks, uncertainly. He’s really thrown her for a loop, he knows. Had known, but sometimes he forgets how soft she can be under that hard exterior. “Like you already know what you want?”

He does, he realizes. He knows. Maybe he’s always known but he’s been more about fighting the good fight. Once he was released from that battle, he’s done nothing but zero in on her. He’s never really been the ‘playing the field’ type. Not when it really comes down to it. He likes the flirting, he likes knowing women want him, but when it comes down to who he wants in his bed and by his side…

It’s always been Olivia. Even when it wasn’t Olivia.

“I…” he feels like he’s defending himself. “I don’t know. I don’t have it all figured out. It’s still complicated. I know it isn’t that simple. I just… I feel like the right thing isn’t as cut and dried as it used to be. I feel like maybe… maybe the things I thought were _right_ really aren’t all that right. And maybe the things I thought were wrong really aren’t that wrong.”

She sighs and then falls silent, and he isn’t feeling the fidgetiness or the tension anymore so maybe she’s comforted by the fact that he’s as confused as she is.

“Okay,” she says, quietly.

“I understand,” he says, “That you needed the space. It’s okay.”

And she sighs again and it feels more comfortable, and he thinks that, well, maybe they’re kind of communicating now. As imperfect and chaotic as it is. Maybe they’re starting to see.

* * * * * *

Clay has a glass of red wine waiting for her when she walks into the bar, and she almost groans in relief at the sight of it.

She sighs wearily as she collapses onto the stool next to him, and he grins and takes a big swallow of his beer and says, “You getting too old for this, Benson?”

“Yes,” she snaps, and then she lifts her glass and sips the wine and the warmth goes straight to her toes, and she closes her eyes and hums happily. When she opens them again, Clay is looking amused and a little flirtatious, and she says, “I thought you hated wine. What’s the occasion?”

“No occasion.” He shrugs. “You like it. It has a higher alcohol content. It sounded like you were having a hard time of it today so I splurged.”

“You really are an angel,” she says, smirking. The wine is going down quickly. She’s already halfway through the glass.

“How did you do?” he asks then, more seriously.

And she sighs. “Not well.” The day had been a bust. She’d brought the girls coffee in the evening, and they’d taken it, but while some of the girls were willing to talk, they just didn’t know much. And the ones who seemed to be hiding things, like Lucy, were still closed up tight. “I feel like I’m being completely useless to you,” she says.

“You’ll get there,” Clay encourages. “They’re at least joking around with you. They won’t even give me the time of day. It takes time.”

“I know, I know, it’s just…” She sighs again. “I don’t know. I just keep waiting for another one to disappear and show up dead, and it all feels so urgent. I just…” She doesn’t even know what to say and she stares down at her wine glass, rubbing her thumb over the smooth stem.

“What about the priest’s secretary?” he prods, gently.

They’d finally come up with a suspect when Vice had nabbed a small-town priest from the ‘burbs soliciting a prostitute only 2 blocks from the circle of activity the killer was active in.

Olivia shrugs. “Nothing. She just insists he’s a great priest and a good man, and I’m not really sure she knows anything anyway. She’s strictly a volunteer and seems happily married. She couldn’t offer him an alibi though. She’s home every night with her kids.”

“Well, we’ll keep digging. Maybe we’ll hit his bookkeeper tomorrow.”

“I think you should try her alone,” Olivia says. “She has a thing for you. You might get more out of her if I’m not there.”

Clay slants her a wry look. “What?”

Olivia smiles. “She couldn’t keep her eyes off of you, Clay. You didn’t notice that? It was so obvious. And you call yourself a detective.”

He actually reddens a little bit at that, and stammers, “I, uh… I guess I didn’t notice.”

“You butter her up a little bit, and she’ll be eating from your hand.”

He grimaces at that.

Olivia laughs. “Elliot and I do it all the time. You find the weaknesses. And sometimes that’s an attraction to one of us. Especially in sex crimes. You can really bait them with gendered attacks.”

“Huh,” Clays says. “I guess.”

For all his posturing, Olivia realizes she’s never seen him with a woman or heard him talk about anyone except his wife. But it’s been five years since her death so surely…

“Do you date?” she suddenly asks. “I mean, it’s been five years since your wife died, right?”

He waves at the bartender to get them another round and then shrugs. “Sure. Sometimes. To be honest, I’m not all that interested in anything serious.”

“Why not?”

He looks at her, his blue eyes a little shadowed in the dimness of the bar. “I don’t know. I just… I had my great love, you know? I’m all for having a little fun and I’m definitely about quality over quantity, but I try to avoid getting in too deep. I’m fine with the way things are.”

She looks at him and he immediately holds up a hand and interrupts her before she can speak. “And no, it’s not about getting over my wife’s death! I’m at peace with that. But she was the one, Liv. And I… I mean, I’ll never say never, but if I just go through the rest of whatever life I have left having fun and remembering her as my one truth in life, I’m okay with that.”

“I don’t think she’d want you to be lonely,” Olivia says. The bartender pours her more Merlot, and she sips it slowly.

“I’m not,” he says. He smiles. “Well, I mean, I miss her, and sometimes that’s lonely. But I have friends.”

“With benefits?” she teases.

“Yes,” he deadpans. “Exactly.”

Olivia shakes her head and then smiles. She understands that to some degree. They live the same life now, even if they don’t come from the same place. Clay dedicates himself to his work and has casual relationships because he already had his great love. She does it because she can’t find hers. Or… can’t have him.

Couldn’t have him.

But now…

She takes another, bigger sip of wine and waits for the warm haze to surround her. “Okay,” she says. She sighs. “I get that.”

He grins. “Yeah? Because you and I… I think we could have a summer thing that’s hotter than the weather.”

It’s a balmy night for mid-June. She smiles at his come-on and gives him a mordant glance. “I couldn’t sleep with you,” she says.

“Why?” he asks curiously, his joking cast aside for a moment. “No one would have to know. Both of us want to keep it casual.”

“Yeah, but…”

“I like you,” he says. “A lot.”

“I like you too,” she says. “Find you attractive even.”

“But?” he asks.

She slowly spins her glass and sighs.

“But,” he answers for her when she stays silent. “I have my dead wife holding me back, and you have… Elliot.”

She chews on her bottom lip for a moment. “This is the worst possible time to meet someone like you,” she says. “But I can’t do anything with anyone until I settle this thing with Elliot.”

“The thing that’s complicated?”

She nods. “It wouldn’t be fair to him, or me, or you.”

“Okay,” he says, grabbing a handful of peanuts from a bowl on the bar. “So, what’s so complicated about it?”

And she has no idea how to even start.

“You’re partners,” Clay states.

“Yes.”

“You like each other.”

“Of course.”

“The job is hard, you have late nights, you get each other.”

“Yeah…” she answers more slowly.

“You want to jump into bed together?”

And then she stumbles. “I, uh… ahh…”

“You have already?”

“No!” she states emphatically. “No. Never.”

He looks at her soberly. “It happens all the time, Liv. People are human.”

“He’s married,” she says.

“Oh.” Clay studies her.

“Well,” she says, correcting herself. “I mean, he’s getting divorced.”

“Oh!” Clay says, more brightly now.

“But,” she says. “I just…”

“It’s complicated,” Clay offers.

She sighs. “I know his wife, Clay. I know his kids.”

“And?” he asks. “If you didn’t do anything wrong, then you’re perfectly within your rights, Olivia.”

She shakes her head and says, almost absently, “But the feelings were there. Just because we didn’t act on them…”

“Jesus, Liv, you’re human. You’re allowed to have feelings. It isn’t the feelings that make a person bad. It’s how they act on those feelings. You did the right thing. Now you’re allowed to work it out properly.”

“They’ll think we’ve been sleeping together all along,” she says, and she almost can’t stop it from coming out. It’s like feeling the fear pour out of her.

“You can’t control what other people think or do,” he says, softly. “You just have to do what’s right for you.”

“I don’t know if I can live with them thinking that,” she admits, quietly.

“Can you live without Elliot?” he counters. “Can you live with seeing him with someone else? Can you live with never knowing what could have been?”

“Stop,” she says, and she puts her hand over her eyes.

His hand grips her shoulder warmly. “Sorry,” he says. “You’re right. It’s complicated.”

“I just need some time,” she says.

He squeezes her shoulder and lifts his beer mug, tapping it against her wine glass as she holds it to the bar top. “Summer of discovery,” he says. “Remember?”

She looks at him and nods, numbly.

“Besides,” Clay says, setting his empty beer mug down on the bar. “If that Elliot thing doesn’t work out for you, you can always give me a try.”

She tries not to laugh, but it bursts out anyway.

* * * * * *

There is a cool breeze starting up when they walk out into the night and climb into Clay’s Pathfinder. It’s a few years old and has some scrapes and dents in the dark blue paint, which is what makes it so perfect for police work. They can park and watch the streets come alive and no one notices.

He drives her home, and she doesn’t feel like talking so she turns his radio on and watches the city go by outside her window, and he doesn’t try to intrude.

She does like Clay. She likes him a lot. She feels a kinship with him and she understands him. He is a decidedly simple man who feels honest and genuine. He has already been in love, and he’s been in love _hard_. That in and of itself feels relieving. Like the pressure is off. He’s good-looking in a general way, and striking in a non-general way, and she does feel attraction.

But she has not known him very long, and while she could see the potential a few years from now, when both of them find that casual is wearing thin and maybe it’s time to start thinking about ‘never say never’, his place in her psyche is still small.

When she thinks of Elliot, the space he takes up inside of her is huge. It’s heavy and all-encompassing and it is soaked with the years of their combined baggage. When she thinks of Elliot, she can barely breathe.

It would have been easy in those first few hours after everything changed, for her to run away. But she realizes now that no matter how many times she runs, or how far, she’ll always come back. Until whatever this is between them is finally laid to rest, she will never be able to walk away from him. And maybe vice versa as well.

As Clay drives down her street and they start slowing, she sees Elliot sitting on the steps of her apartment building. Her breath catches.

Clays sees him too. “Uh oh,” he teases. “Dad is waiting up. I must have kept you out too late.”

“Clay,” she chastises.

He smiles despite it all and pulls the Pathfinder over in front of her building, double-parking.

Elliot’s eyes meet hers through the passenger-side window and he stands and walks toward the SUV. She turns to grab her bag and Clay ducks his head to look out the window and says, “He looks kind of intense. Maybe tonight will be the night it gets less complicated.”

“Oh my God,” she exclaims, looking at him incredulously. He’s teasing, and she isn’t sure if she wants to laugh or smack him.

He grins. She punches him in the arm.

“Ow,” he barks, glaring at her.

She glares right back and then her door is opening and Elliot is standing there, and she ignores Clay and looks at Elliot and asks, “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you,” Elliot says, and he gives a quick nod in Clay’s direction, but he talks to Olivia. “You still have your notes from the Dunn case?”

“Of course,” she says. No cop ever throws away their old notebooks.

“See you later, Benson,” Clay says as she climbs out. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow afternoon.” He grins at her. “Late,” he adds.

She rolls her eyes and shoots him a cross look. “I’ll take a cab,” she snaps, and she shuts the door before he starts laughing.

As he drives away, she absently thinks about buying him coffee before their shift tomorrow night. And putting salt in it.

When he’s gone, she looks at Elliot and he gives her a faint smile. “You’re working pretty late,” he says.

“Were you waiting long? You should have called. We went out for a drink afterwards. I’d have come home sooner or I could have dropped off the notes tomorrow.”

Elliot shrugs. He’s in jeans and a T-shirt and he smells like soap, and she thinks about their phone call last week and everything he’d said.

 _. I feel like maybe… maybe the things I thought were right really aren’t all that right. And maybe the things I thought were wrong really aren’t that wrong._

She can relate.

“I finished my reports on the Dunn case earlier this week,” she tells him. “I sent them to Cragen already. If that’s what this is about.”

“No,” he says, quietly. “I just want to go over some of the witness remarks. The stuff that didn’t make it into the reports.”

“Oh,” she says, and she wonders what he’s up to. She puts her key into the door and opens it for them, and there isn’t so much a lobby in the apartment building as a foyer. It’s a narrow, long hallway with mailboxes and an old, dusty plastic plant. Her mail comes in the morning, so she gets it before work these days.

Elliot follows her as she climbs the first flight of stairs, and when they reach her landing, there’s a little alcove with a window. It’s quiet in the hallway, and a fluorescent light a few feet away, flickers and buzzes. She has to stop to dig a separate key out of her bag, and she looks at him and asks, “What are you going to do with my notes?”

“Look for the body,” he says, and she stills.

She looks at him, finally, full on, and that’s when she sees the grimness in his eyes. The tension in his jaw. “Elliot…” she starts, gently.

“I know,” he says. “But I think she can be found, and it’s just not over until she’s buried properly.”

Even the limited amount of time that Nick Dunn had to hide the body still created a vast search area, and she feels concern. “So, what are you going to do? Spend your weekends walking through the woods?”

“Yeah,” he says, and he leans back into the alcove, tiredly. In the moonlight shining through, she can see the pain on his face.

“El,” she says, quietly. “What is it?”

He pauses and then he looks at her, and he says, “Mary’s mother came into the precinct today.”

She feels it immediately. She knows, without him saying, what went down and how he felt. She can almost picture it. The tears and the begging and the sadness, and how Elliot’s heart would have snapped.

“She wanted to know if we were still looking,” Elliot continues. “And I had to tell her no. That the NYPD considers the case closed.”

“I’m sorry,” Olivia whispers. “Jesus… I should have been there with you.”

He shakes his head slightly. “I just… what was I supposed to tell her? Maybe some hiker or hunter will find the body. Just… go on with your life now?”

Olivia swallows and eases into the alcove with him as voices come up the stairs from below. She lowers her voice. “Are you sure you want to do this? We’ve had cases where we didn’t find the victim before.”

“This is different, Liv,” he says in that quiet rasp. “You know it is.”

She does. But at the same time, they both know the importance of letting go. It’s a fine line between caring about cases and obsession. But this case got to them. To both of them.

“We may never find her,” she warns, trying to keep her voice low. “He could have sunk her in the river, dropped her down a well. It happens all the time. People have to find a way to move on anyway.”

“This guy,” Elliot says, leaning forward a bit until she can feel the warmth of his body and feel his breath on her face. “He wanted her to fear him. Even in death. Her sister said she’d hated the idea of bodies being left in the woods. She was terrified of animals. Dunn would have wanted to put her in the worst place. He wants to know she’s still there and being tortured. He wants her family to know it too. That’s what was important to him, even more than being caught.”

She breathes slowly, looking into his eyes. He moves her when he’s like this. So driven and desperate for her to believe him. “You really think you can find her?”

“I’m going to try.”

She swallows and the flickering of the fluorescent light against his face is haunting. “Then keep me in the loop,” she says. “I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t have to,” he says. “You’ve got your own case.”

“ _This_ is my case too, El. We did this together. It’s hitting us the same way. If we’re going to find her, we’re going to do it together.”

He holds her gaze for a long time, breathing slowly. She realizes how close they’re standing, how intimate the little alcove is. She’s surrounded by his heat, his scent, the sound of his breathing.

“I miss you, Liv,” he says, so, so quietly.

She’s frozen in place, and she can’t look away from him. It’s been too long, and every second she holds his gaze, she sees everything between them happening. She feels every second of those 12 years and every beat of her own heart.

“I miss you too,” she says, because it’s true.

She doesn’t even realize he’s touching her until his hand moves on her arm. His fingers close around her elbow and he pulls down, anchoring her, and he leans forward.

She stops breathing.

He hesitates when they’re nose to nose, his mouth inches away from hers. She feels every nerve-ending in her body sparking, and she can’t move. She can’t breathe. She can’t say no, or yes, or anything, and she can’t look away from him. When he leans forward again, she jerks back.

Just a little. Her breath starting and stopping and making her feel light-headed.

He pauses, but he doesn’t pull back and she still doesn’t look away from him. She feels stretched tight, like a bowstring. He waits and she doesn’t move, and he leans forward again, and this time she stays. This time she feels his warm breath flow against her lips.

This time his lips touch hers and it’s a sensation that’s barely there. Her lungs ache and she gasps out a breath and then his mouth covers hers, and Elliot is kissing her.

 _Elliot is kissing her._

She can’t move for a moment. His hand slides gently along her hair and then down, over her bare neck, and he opens his mouth and kisses her deeper.

She reacts. She opens her mouth and pushes back against him, and then she’s tasting him. She can feel the softness of his lips, the fullness, and the wet warmth of his tongue, and all she can see in her mind is his name.

 _Elliot. Elliot._

In the silence she hears the light buzzing and the wet sound of their mouths, and he makes a soft sound and breaks it off to take a deep breath, but even as she tilts her head back against the wall to calm her nerves, he’s stepping forward, leaning against her, and she can feel his whole body. The solidness of his muscle, the heavy weight of him, the heat.

He holds her neck and props his other arm up against the wall, beside her head, sheltering her from the open hallway, and then he’s kissing her again, and it’s hungry this time. Hard.

She doesn’t even realize her fingers are curled into his lower back, until he shifts and she feels the big muscles there flex under her hands. She has her eyes tightly closed because she’s so lost now, so completely dizzy, that all she can feel is his mouth.

He tastes like toothpaste, and she imagines she tastes like wine, and their bodies are sliding together in a slow, slow way that’s making her feel too wound up. She’s falling. Falling.

And then a door opens down the hall and she hears the laugh of one of her neighbors as he steps into the hallway with someone else and the door clicks closed behind them.

Elliot pulls slowly away, his eyes finding hers as he leans back against his side of the tiny alcove.

The neighbor clears his throat, and she glances over to give him an awkward, glancing smile as he passes. Their footsteps pound down the stairs and fade out as they leave.

She and Elliot stare at each other.

He’s still looking at her in that fierce, fervent way he has. Like he wants to wreck her, but not in the same way he wrecks perps. Like once he gets his hands on her, she’ll never be the same again.

And she believes that.

“I’ll get the notes,” she says, and her voice is a painful rasp of whisper and hoarseness. She doesn’t know what else to say.

He follows her to her apartment and she fumbles with the key before she finally slots it into the lock and twists it.

When they step into the dark apartment, she flips on a single lamp and he says, “Olivia,” in a low, dark voice.

She can’t look at him. She can still feel his mouth on her, and the way her skin is cooling now with his heat gone. There are stacks of mail and newspapers on her kitchen counter, and she digs through looking for her notebook, and her hands are shaking.

God, he burned her.

“Olivia,” he says again.

And she turns away from him. “It’s here somewhere,” she says. “I started a new one when I started with Clay.”

And then his hand is curling around her arm, his fingers gripping around her biceps, and he turns her, presses her against the wall, and she looks briefly into his blue eyes before his mouth is back on hers, and he’s burning her all over again.

She gives in. She has to. All she can taste is his mouth and his heat and he’s kissing her hard, and she can feel it in every inch of her body. In her head, in her hands, between her legs and lower.

His breathing is fast and he presses a thigh between her legs, drops his hands and slides them around her waist, and their heat burns her even though her shirt. She has her fingers curled into his back again, and he’s all muscle there, solid and unmoving. His tongue keeps touching hers, and his lips grab at hers, and she just can’t even think.

She puts a hand on the back of his head and his hair is bristle-short, his nape smooth and shaven. He presses her back harder, until the wall feels like brick, and then she can’t breathe anymore and she breaks away, tilting her head down so she can gasp.

He pants above her ear, his body hard, until she sags a bit in his arms. Then he gives her room to collapse against the wall, and he braces himself there with his hands, his head tilting slightly to touch hers. “Christ, Liv,” he rasps.

She takes a few deep breaths and she knows they can’t keep going. She’ll hate herself tomorrow, and she whispers, “What are we doing?”

He breathes for a while and then pulls back so she can see his eyes, and he says, “Starting over.”

“You’re not even divorced yet.”

“There’s no rebound here, Liv. You and I have been together for 12 years, whether we slept together in that time or not.”

She looks into his eyes, and he still looks like he wants to wreck her, but he looks concerned too. “We can’t…” she says, and then trails away, because she isn’t sure what she wants to say after that. We can’t. We can’t… do this. Right now.

He lets a long breath out and closes his eyes, and then he nods slowly. “I’m going,” he says, looking at her again. “Okay.”

He reluctantly steps back and gives her room. She moves slower now, and looks through her stack of mail, and her notebook is on the bottom. She picks it up and hands it to him, and he takes it.

His gaze holds hers. She doesn’t say anything. Her body is still humming with the want of it all. She was kissing him back, and they both know it.

“I’m going out on Saturday to search for a while,” he says. “You still with me?”

She pauses, but this has always been their way. As much as the kisses shook her, he is still her partner. As much as she wants to run away, she wants to grab him and hold on too.

“Yes,” she says, softly.

“Unless you tell me otherwise, I’ll be here Saturday morning,” he says, and he opens her door.

She nods, not trusting her voice beyond a single word or sound. Her lungs still ache from lack of air.

He holds her gaze again, for one beat, then two, and then he says, “Bye, Liv.” And he turns away and walks out, closing the door behind him.

She immediately sits down on the arm of her sofa, all the air rushing from her.

Christ. _Christ._

It takes a long time before she can get up and get ready for bed.

Even longer before she can sleep.

* * * * *


	10. Momentum

* * * * *

He doesn’t sleep that much that night either. He lies awake and his lips burn a little, like she’s still there. It feels ridiculous, like he’s still in high school.

It feels exciting.

He kissed her because he wanted to. Because he wanted to nudge them both out of that comfort zone they’ve been in, on and off, for 12 years.

It had just been a quiet moment, and she’d known without him speaking that something was wrong. She’d known, without him explaining, exactly what had gone down. He’d just felt so close to her in that moment, and he’d wanted to be closer.

And she’d been warm but distant, solid but delicate, affected by him and resisting, all at the same time. He has to admit, he’s had a moment or two of fear over the past few months, that when or if anything finally happened between the two of them, things would be… disappointing. That maybe their window had passed, and it would feel somehow… off.

But it hadn’t.

He’d put his mouth on hers and tasted her and pressed his body right up against hers, and her arms had wrapped around him. Her mouth had opened. He’d been so overwhelmed by her that he’d been painfully hard and numb at the same time.

He wants this. He wants this _so much_. He wants _her_ …

He hadn’t even realized how much until tonight. It feels so… natural. Like sliding from one life into another, and it’s inevitable. He and Olivia have been interlocked for over a decade now. He realizes in some way that he’d slid into her life as far as circumstances would allow over these past few years. Wedged himself there with grim determination. Maybe ignorant determination. Waiting. Or just existing.

He’d been tugging at the bonds of his marriage, as much as they’d allow, maybe deliberately, maybe not. Testing their strength. And when they’d finally broken, he’d fallen forward into Olivia and hadn’t looked back.

Not to say he doesn’t have regrets, because he has them in full. But looking back now… it’s all so clear to him.

They can make this work. _He_ can make this work, with Olivia. He can be the one who holds her in the end.

He’s pretty damn sure of it.

* * * * * *

Dickie… damn it—Rich—comes over on Thursday night and has pizza with him. They’d spent a pretty laid-back Saturday last weekend getting yard work done for Kathy and then went out for a burger. Kathy hadn’t even complained that Elliot had ruined Rich’s appetite. She’d shrugged and said, “As long as he’s eaten.” And then walked away, and Elliot thinks she’s probably just relieved that they’re talking again.

He hasn’t really asked her how she’s doing. She’s been busy and focused, on work or a new personal life, he doesn’t know, but he knows that despite the relatively friendly break-up, they both need some distance from each other now.

He can be a pretty possessive man by nature, he knows this. And even though he no longer wants to be her husband, he still sees her as part of his family. It’s going to take some time. And she’s made it pretty clear she won’t put up with that shit.

There is a strength to her now that she didn’t always have in their marriage, and he wonders why. If somehow it was him bringing her down. Eroding her will power to deal with him.

Sometimes he feels that with Olivia too.

“Dad,” Rich says from his tiny kitchen table. “What’s my social security number?”

Elliot looks up from the maps he has spread all over the coffee table and furrows his brow at his son. “I don’t know, Rich. Jesus. How do you not know that?”

Rich rolls his eyes and gestures dramatically. “I’ve never had to use it before now! Mom always knows it. I thought parents were supposed to know everything about their kids.” In some ways, he’s still very much a child. He’s filling out his first job application in the hopes he can get a bus boy job at a local restaurant and make some money for a ‘hot’ summer, as he puts it.

“Really?” Elliot asks, deadpan. “So is there anything you want to tell me about yourself to make sure I know _everything_? Because somehow I doubt I know it all.”

Rich rolls his eyes again. “Never mind.”

“Yeah,” Elliot mutters. “I thought so.”

Rich pulls his wallet out and thumbs through it, and Elliot demands, “Please tell me you do not keep your social security card in your wallet! What if someone steals it? They’d have everything they needed to steal your identity.”

“Dad,” Rich protests. “I don’t.” But he snaps the wallet closed and looks vaguely uncomfortable.

Elliot tosses him the cordless phone. “Here. Call your mother. She’ll know the number or where to find it.”

While Rich calls, Elliot looks back down at the maps and then picks up Olivia’s notebook and flips through it. He’s been browsing through it on and off all afternoon, not always reading the notes she’s taken.

She writes things about him in her notebook.

There are little arrows coming off of some of her notes from earlier cases with her neat cursive at the end saying things like: “Witness was acting odd? Get El’s POV.” And “Double-check alibi. Call El.”

In one corner of paper, that she’d blocked off from the rest of her notes with thick, repeated ink lines is the reminder: “Sal’s Deli has the homemade potato chips again. TELL EL.”

And it makes him smile, because he loves those potato chips, but Sal’s doesn’t make them all year round, and she was thinking of him. She remembered and she wanted to tell him so he could get some.

He knows it’s not a love letter. It’s not like she’s written out her name and his and then drawn little hearts around them. She doesn’t have her first name followed by his last name in a list down the page. If she’d done that, she’d never have let him have the notebook.

But it’s something. It’s a sign of her affection. It’s a sign of their partnership and how they care.

It’s warmth.

Rich hangs up and scribbles something down on the application.

Elliot frowns. “Don’t write so messily that they can’t read it, Dickie.”

Dickie glares at him.

“I mean, Rich,” Elliot corrects.

Rich sighs. “The guys want to go camping at Wildwood next month. I just need enough to buy some gear and my share of the permits.” He glances up at Elliot slyly. “You could just give me the money. Then I wouldn’t have to work at all. I could just hang out with you. I mean, during the days on weekend when I don’t go out with my friends.”

Now Elliot rolls his eyes. He gestures toward the application in front of Rich. “Keep going. Write neatly.”

Rich scowls and keeps writing.

Elliot thinks it’ll be good for him to have a job, even if it’s only for a couple of months. Give him some sense of responsibility and consequences. He’s a little worried, to be honest, that Rich won’t have quite the drive toward college that both Kathleen and Liz seem to possess. Admittedly, Kathleen didn’t get her drive until she’d been diagnosed and medicated, but she still found her way eventually.

He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with Rich that a little growing up won’t cure.

“Dad, can I put you down as a reference?” Rich asks.

Elliot taps his pencil against the map of New Jersey in front of him, thinking. “I don’t think they really want you to put your dad down for that. Why would they believe me?”

Rich frowns. “I don’t know anyone else except you and mom! And my teachers all thought I was a trouble-maker.”

“Yeah, I wonder why they thought that,” Elliot remarks dryly. Rich’s eyes roll skyward again, and Elliot considers some more and then tentatively licks his lips nervously. “You could ask Olivia,” he suggests.

Rich’s face becomes serious and he meets Elliot’s gaze and holds it, silently.

Elliot steels himself and goes on. “She’s not related to you, and she’s a respected detective. They won’t know she’s my partner. And she loves you. She’d give you a glowing review.”

Rich looks away from him, and purses his lips in serious thought for a moment. “I guess,” he says, slowly. He looks back at Elliot. “Maybe I should.”

Elliot picks up the phone. “Want me to get her on the line for you?”

Rich hesitates, and Elliot can see his mind turning over and over, and then he nods, silently. Elliot punches in the numbers of Olivia’s cell phone, knowing she’s probably either working still or on her way home.

He realizes as it starts ringing that this will be the first time he’s talked to her since the kiss, and he has his son sitting right here in listening distance.

Maybe he should have offered to call tomorrow and given himself a little time to prepare. Shit.

She answers on the second ring. “Hey,” she says, already knowing it’s him. And he supposes that’s a good sign. That she answered at all upon seeing his name on her cell screen.

“Hey,” he says. “You got a minute?”

“Yeah,” she says, and she sounds… guarded, but not afraid.

“My son wants to ask you a question,” he says.

And there is long, silent pause over the line. “Ahhh…” she finally stammers. “Okay.”

He realizes at that moment, how dubious this all sounds. That this is the first call after the kiss, and he just tells her that his son wants to ask a question, and the last question Rich asked Olivia was about whether she’d ever slept with her partner.

Fuck.

He wants to reassure her, but he isn’t sure how to do it with Rich sitting three feet away from him. “It’s just…” he starts. “It’s not…” He sighs. “Here, let him ask.” He hands the phone to Rich, and Rich swallows and takes it, puts it to his ear.

“Hi, Olivia,” he says, and his voice is tentative, maybe a bit contrite. He bites his lip as he listens. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m okay. How are you?”

Elliot listens attentively, his heart beating against his chest wall.

Rich fidgets a bit in the chair and says, “It was good.” He keeps biting his lip. “Yeah, I’m glad I’m done. I’m going to NYU.” Pause. “I don’t know yet. I kind of like Aerospace Engineering.”

Elliot frowns at that. Aerospace Engineering? How much would a degree in _that_ cost? Christ, he’ll be working until he drops dead.

“I don’t know,” Rich continues. “I’m taking some general courses to start with, and then I’d have to transfer if I want to do that. I don’t know yet.” Pause. “Yeah, I know.”

Transfer? Elliot rubs at his face. Well. Clearly, he’s underestimated his son’s ambition. He seems to have done some work on his future.

“I want to ask you, can I use you as a reference? I’m trying to get a job for a few months to get some money before I leave.”

Rich bites his lip and listens and then Elliot sees a vague smile appear on his lips.

“Yeah? Thanks!”

Elliot smiles.

Rich looks up at him, smiling now. “Okay. Thank you. Here’s my dad again.” He hands the phone to Elliot, and Elliot takes it.

“Hey,” he says. “Thanks.”

“Sure,” she says, sounding relieved and much more relaxed now. “I’m glad I could help.”

“Well, he doesn’t have the job yet, but I think you’re the best bet he has.”

She laughs quietly. “I doubt that, El. He’s a great kid.”

“Yeah,” he says. “ _Most_ of the time.”

“I have to admit,” she says. “I was a little nervous when you just threw out that he wanted to ask me something.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, wincing. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “I’m glad he’s doing well.”

Elliot smiles. “See you on Saturday?” he asks, and then feels the butterflies of nervousness in his belly. “I’ll bring the cofffee.”

She hesitates, for a long time it seems like, and the butterflies tangle more furiously. He shouldn’t have given her another chance. He shouldn’t have even asked. He should have just shown up and bulldozed right over her uncertainty.

“Yeah,” she says, finally, and he breathes silently in relief. “You got a place in mind?”

He glances down at the maps. “I’m working out a few likely places right now.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he says. “See you.”

She says goodbye and hangs up, and he feels warm and optimistic and guardedly excited. When he looks up, Rich is leaning with his chin resting in his hand on the table and is staring at him with a vaguely disturbed look on his face.

“What?” Elliot demands.

“Jesus, dad,” Rich says. “That was totally gross the way you went all gooey on her.”

Gooey? What the hell? “I did not,” he argues.

Rich just rolls his eyes again, for what seems like the five hundredth time that night, and says, “Whatever. It was hilarious.”

Elliot just points silently at the application in front of his son, and then returns to his maps, but inside he feels warm, and it makes him wonder exactly how visible he and Olivia were over the years.

And decides he doesn’t care anymore.

* * * * *

He stops in at her favorite coffee place near her block on Saturday morning. He gets them both a large cup and grabs a few packets of sugar. She wavers between using sugar substitutes and deciding they’re unnatural. He finds that a little amusing, but also kind of endearing. She carries a gun and has been shot at more times than he ever was in the Marines, but she gets worried about Splenda.

As July approaches, the weather is warm and he can feel the humidity starting to creep up on them. It’s a sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, and there’s a breeze that’s blowing warm, but not hot.

He’s not sure how far the brush has grown up in the woods, so he’s wearing an old pair of ripstop cargo pants and a tan, threadbare T-shirt.

He knocks on her door, and she opens it and gives him a crooked smile, and he feels suddenly a bit awkward. Her gaze flickers down over his chest and his arms, and then jerks back up to his eyes, and he can’t stop staring at her mouth.

Well.

He hands her a coffee and she shuts the door behind him and sips it immediately, humming happily.

And he’s kind of turned on…

Jesus. And he was worried about no sparks?

She’s in jeans and an old plaid button-up shirt that he used to see a lot back when she moved out of the pantsuits and blazers and into the boots and denim. It’s a maroon and white that clings to her figure and brings out the color of her eyes, and this is so new to him.

Looking at her as more than his partner. More than Olivia.

She is someone he wants to sleep with. Someone he wants to impress. And yeah, she’s always sort of been that anyway, but in a muted way. A way that he repressed and controlled. Now he just wants to walk right up to her and back her into the wall. He wants to runs his hands over her hips and pull that shirt apart and drag his mouth all over her.

“Where we going?” she asks, glancing away from him, and he wonders how much of what he’s feeling is showing in his eyes.

“Uh,” he says, and he sets his coffee down and pulls some folded maps from the side pocket of his pants. He lays them out on her counter, and she leans over onto her forearms and peers at what he’s done.

He keeps his eyes off her cleavage.

He has maps of Long Island, New Jersey and New York and there’s a thick dark, curved arc drawn on each of them with black magic marker. When he slides the maps together in a certain way, the marks meet and form a circle.

“That’s the furthest I feel like he could have gone in 10 hours, there and back again.” The diameter of the circle is still impressive. He has another circle drawn, about two inches inside the bigger one, and he points to it. “This is the area I feel is more likely though. Because he’d have had to deal with traffic, not to mention either a body or a live, unwilling victim, and provided he didn’t just drive up to an area and push her out of the car, he’d have had to have time to carry her into wherever she is.”

Olivia studies the maps and then looks up at him with a little wonder. “Wow,” she says. “You’re really serious about this.”

He nods. “Aren’t you?”

She holds his gaze for a moment, her expression genuine. “Yes,” she says, quietly. “This is great, El.”

He lifts the corner of his mouth.

They just look at each other then, and he can see that she’s thinking about the kiss as much as he is. When the moment goes on a beat too long, she glances away, and he asks, “You want to talk about it?” He’d be perfectly happy not to. To just let it go and keep going without analyzing it to death.

She thinks about it and then shrugs and says, “No.”

So he points to a little circle on the map and says, “There’s a public hunting area in this refuge that Nick’s brother says he knew really well. I think it’s a logical place to start.”

Olivia nods and sips her coffee and says, “Okay. Let’s go.”

Driving with her in the passenger seat of his jeep is strange. Both because it’s familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. They’ve been partners for 12 years. He’s driven with her beside him more than any other human being on the planet, but it’s different when they’re not on duty.

Or maybe it’s different because he’s different.

It’s a pretty long drive. Over an hour. And they sip their coffee and talk.

“So, Dickie,” she says, giving him a glancing smile. “He wants to be an aerospace engineer, huh?”

Elliot winces and sighs. “Yeah, I guess so. We’ll see. That seems like a whole lot of math to me, and he never took school very seriously.”

She shrugs. “Well, maybe he’s ready to buckle-down. Does he know if he got the job yet?”

Elliot shakes his head. “He only turned the application in yesterday.” He glances at her with a smile. “Thanks for being a reference though, Liv.”

She grins. “Sure. I hope he gets it.”

Elliot smiles a bit, but it’s strained, and Olivia, as always, must notice.

“How are things going now?” she asks, carefully. “With Dickie, I mean.”

He licks his lips and watches the traffic in front of them and then shrugs and says, “Well, first of all, it’s now _Rich_ , instead of Dickie or Dick.”

Olivia laughs at that. “Yeah? Well, look… I don’t mean to cast aspersions on your choice of names, but I can hardly blame the kid for that one.”

He shoots her a wry glare, and she looks away, grinning.

“Otherwise,” he says. “It’s better. He was really angry at me for a while, and I don’t think he’s fully okay with things yet, but we’re getting there.”

“I’m glad,” she says.

When they reach the park, she gets out and stretches while he pulls a pack from the back storage area. He has a compass and a few topographical maps and the department’s digital camera for general use, along with some water and snack bars. He also pulls out the two cut-off broomsticks they used for the last search and hands one to her.

After a quick trip to the restroom, they set out on one of the hiking paths. It’s actually a raised, wooden platform for a ways, and there’s a lot of people there enjoying the weather.

“The Jersey police let me come in and look at the maps they collected from Dunn’s apartment,” he says as they walk. “He had a few areas off-trail marked on a map of this place. I thought we’d check those out.”

“Okay,” she says, glancing around. “Yeah, this is pretty crowded. I can’t see him leaving her in a well-populated area like this.”

“The hunting areas are more remote.”

They walk on, and her cell phone chirps. She checks it and grins, then taps something back, and he looks at her curiously. “Who’s that?”

“Clay,” she says. “He’s interviewing a possible witness today for our case.”

His stomach clenches a little. She’s relaxed with Crowder in a way she hasn’t been with him in a while, and it grates. “Yeah?” he says, trying to sound interested and casual and _not_ jealous. “And that’s funny?”

She smiles at him. “Well, the witness is a church accountant who clearly found him really attractive. He didn’t believe me, but I insisted he go alone to question her. I thought she’d open up to him more.”

He wonders if Olivia finds Crowder attractive too. “And?” he prods.

“She made a pass at him.” Olivia grins, and Elliot smiles too, but there’s a stab of pain somewhere inside at her exuberance.

He’s had her all to himself for a long time.

“You got a suspect then?”

She sighs. “Not really. We thought we did when Vice caught a priest soliciting a prostitute only a few blocks away from our central crime area, but the guy seems to be locked down tight with alibis.”

“Maybe a priest is too obvious,” he says.

“Maybe,” she agrees.

They’re quiet for a while, and as he leads them off-trail, the crowds fade away. There are faint paths beat into the brush, and he isn’t sure if they’re game trails or human. There are footprints of both.

They start looking then, using the sticks to dig into ground that seems disturbed, lifting heavy brush to glance underneath, walking out into thick foliage to look at slips of paper and anything that seems alien to this place.

“You know this is like finding a needle in a haystack?” Olivia asks him quietly after they’ve been at it for a couple of hours.

“I know,” he says. “You want to quit?”

 

”No,” she says immediately, and she stops to stand still and just look around. The breeze blows delicate strands of her hair free from the ponytail she’s tied it into, and they brush against her cheeks, her jaw. She uses long, firm fingers to push it back again.

He realizes he’s distracted by her. That even as he searches for Mary Dunn, his mind is always half on Olivia. On how she’s doing, how she’s breathing, how his heart beats when she glances at him.

How have they worked together for 12 years? Even as repressed as they were, as controlled… How had it not blown up in their faces?

He can’t work with her, he realizes, if they start a relationship. They can’t be partners in that way.

Because he’d be a total pain in the ass. Even provided he could restrain himself from being over-protective and clingy, the stress of waiting for her to be hurt would kill him.

It’s bittersweet in a way, but doesn’t sway him. _Everything and everyone changes,_ Kathy used to tell him, when he’d express surprise and disappointment in his children growing up. Sometimes, when he’d worked long stretches focused on a case, he’d come home on a weekend and it felt like his kids had grown years in his absence.

“Hey,” he says, and Olivia looks at him, fingers pushing her hair back again. “You remember when you asked me if I thought things happened for a reason?”

She gives him a long, silent look, and he can see that she remembers well. She just isn’t sure exactly where he’s going with it, and that worries her a little bit. “Yes,” she finally says.

He jabs his stick in a dirt pile off the trail and then keeps walking, and she falls in next to him. “I think maybe they do.”

She’s quiet again as she thinks about it, and maybe she’s hesitant to go where he wants her to go. Over the phone it’s different, but here, facing him…

“Do I dare ask what brought this on?” she asks.

He watches the trail ahead and shrugs. “Nothing.” He sighs. “Everything.”

“You think God wanted you to get divorced?”

He smiles at that. “I don’t mean everything has a divine reason, but I think when your life is tiresome… there’s a reason for that.”

“Oh,” she says. “Well. Everything has consequences.”

They come to the edge of the forest and there’s a vast expanse of marsh and swampland in front of them. It stretches out of sight from side to side, and there are trees peppered inside of the swamp grass. The high trill of cicadas and about a hundred other insects is loud and constant.

“Shit,” Olivia swears, looking at it. “That’s a really big area to hide a body in.”

He feels his own morale plummet too. “I think the Jersey police brought dogs in here anyway. And they didn’t find anything.”

She takes a slow, deep breath and lets it out again. “It’s water,” she says absently. Softly. “You didn’t think he’d put her in water, and you’re right. He wanted her on dry land, exposed. Not buried or sunk.” She leans wearily against the trunk of a young sapling, and it bends but holds her weight easily.

He looks at her and then walks over and leans next to her, planting his shoulder against another tree growing at an angle next to hers. They’re close, and she glances into his eyes and then away.

“So, what’s the reason behind all this?” she asks quietly. “Behind Mary’s death.”

He thinks about that for a while, and then he says, “Us.”

She exhales with a wry smile, but it’s grim, and she nods, agreeing. “Yes,” she says.

Their shared guilt builds another bond.

“For a long time,” he says, squinting against the glare of the sun, “when Kathy and I got back together, nothing changed. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t good. Everything kept going wrong. I kept… losing my temper, time after time. It’s like… we kept having the same problems over and over.” He glances at Olivia. She isn’t looking at him, but she’s listening. He continues, “But now it feels… different, and not just because we aren’t together anymore. It feels like things are starting to get right again.”

She takes a deep breath and lifts her face into the breeze and says nothing.

“Things weren’t going right because we weren’t supposed to be together, and we both knew it. Once we fixed that, everything became easier. She’s already happier, and the kids will take a little more time, but they’ll be happier too.”

Olivia winces at that and glances at him.

“They’re old enough to have their own lives now,” he says. “Well, except for Eli, but he’s going to have a different life than they do anyway, and it’s going to be good.” He tilts his head sideways, so he’s in her line of vision. “It’s going to be better than the others, because I’m going to focus on him a lot more.”

She swallows.

“This is the way it was meant to be,” he says. “And once we started going along with it, things started improving. It was only when we were fighting it, forcing ourselves to do what we thought we had to do, that it all kept crumbling around us.”

She takes a breath. “You sound like a self-help guru,” she says.

He snorts. “Yeah, that’ll happen.”

She smiles faintly and the breeze brings a subtle, warm scent to him that he knows incontrovertibly is her. “You need to do what’s right for you, El,” she says, quietly. “I would never argue with that.”

“I’m trying to do what’s right for me,” he says. He leans forward a little.

She meets his gaze full on, and he can see the conflict in her eyes.

“If you want me to stop, Olivia,” he says quietly. “Then tell me. Tell me to stop. Tell me you don’t feel the same thing for me, and mean it, and I’ll stop.”

She holds his gaze and her mouth opens and closes but she doesn’t say anything. He can see the shades of brown in her dark eyes now, with the sun so bright and wide in the sky. He’s moving closer still, his boots on either side of her feet, and he grabs the trunk of the tree behind her neck, his arm pressing against her shoulder.

She doesn’t tell him to stop. She doesn’t tell him because what she wants is different than what she wants to want, and he knows that feeling well. He knows the sinking ache that radiates through and how it becomes harder and harder to resist.

“Tell me,” he orders, leaning so close that she must feel his breath against her lips, and his voice is a rasp of ache, even to his own ears. He stands there, so close to her that he can smell her skin, feel her warmth, and he feels a little light-headed. He has to curl his free fingers into the fabric of his cargo pants to keep from touching her.

She breathes slowly and deliberately, but he can hear the restraint there and her breath gasps out against his mouth. He can hear the wind in the tree branches and feel the sun against his neck and they feel utterly alone in this place.

“El,” she says, and it comes out plaintive. Whisper-thin.

 _I know_ , he wants to say. _I know._

But she leans forward suddenly and presses her mouth against his, and he sucks a deep breath in through his nose and closes his eyes and just feels her.

It’s euphoric. With the wind and the cicadas and the sun all around them, she is an island of warm musk and wet mouth. Her fingers slide over his neck, cup the back of his head, and he opens his mouth and lets her deepen the whole thing.

He breathes long and slow and keeps his mouth hard against hers. When he slides his tongue lightly against hers, she follows.

He doesn’t touch her, and he lets it end naturally. It feels right that way.

Her lips break from his and she still has hold of his nape. She exhales and her forehead presses briefly against his chin as she takes a moment, and her affectedness makes him feel hot and strong.

“You see?” he says, as her hair tickles against his mouth. “The world didn’t end.”

He feels the slow slide of her weight as she leans back, away from him again. “Give it time,” she says, a little breathless, a little distracted.

He huffs out a laugh at that, but as if the universe wants to prove him wrong, her cell phone suddenly trills loudly. He recognizes the ring tone as her ‘emergency’ signal, and he sighs silently.

She jumps and pulls her phone from her pocket, glancing at the screen before answering. “Clay?” she asks, without saying hello. And she turns away from him, her other hand going over her free ear to shield it from the cicadas’ noise.

Elliot feels the slow, sinking feeling of disappointment mingled with annoyance. There is a case, he knows, and they will have to walk back to the parking lot and drive back to Manhattan, and she will run off to spend the night with Clay, and he’ll go home.

This is what it will be like, he realizes suddenly, to be with Olivia and not be partners anymore. And it hurts to think of it.

Poetic justice, he thinks, is what Kathy would call it, after she lived that life for 25 years. Now he’s getting a taste of his own medicine.

Olivia hangs up and turns to look at him.

“I know,” he says.

She gives him an apologetic, uneven smile. “He attacked another girl,” she says. “But she got away. Clay is with her in the hospital now, but it’ll be a few hours before she can talk.”

He gives a tight-lipped smile. “Let’s get you back then.”

She stands there for a moment more, holding his gaze, and he isn’t sure what to say anymore than she is. Something is happening here, and he wants it to keep happening. She is weakening before him, and it’s a beautiful thing. But it will take time.

Still, he refuses to look away until she does, and then he falls in behind her on the narrow path back to the main trail.

Olivia has always been the easiest and the most difficult relationship in his entire life. And he guesses that won’t change anytime soon.

As they drive back toward Manhattan, the sun sinks low in the sky in his rear view mirror. Olivia leans against the locked door and sleeps, in anticipation of her long night, and he thinks, _I can do this._

He can let her go when the phone rings. He can let her go out into the night, no matter how cold it is.

As long as she comes back to him in the morning.

* * * * * *


	11. Amplitude

* * * * * *

Clay meets her at hospital at the end of the fifth floor hallway. “The doctor’s in with her now. She walked into a convenience store and collapsed right there. He says we can talk to her in a few minutes.”

He turns and she follows him as they head past a central desk and down another hallway of alternating doorways. “What did the convenience store clerk have to say?” she asks.

Clay shakes his head as they turn another corner and there are two uniformed police officers standing in front of a closed door. “He said she walked in looking dazed, and she was soaking wet. She said something about being a sinner in a weak voice, and then she just went down.”

Olivia shows the two uniforms her badge and then clips it on her belt. They both nod at her, and she and Clay walk a few steps down and lean against the wall, waiting.

“Wet?” she asks, quietly.

“Doc says he almost drowned her. They took samples of the water to test, but hopefully she remembers enough to give us a lead.”

Olivia furrows her brow. “None of the other victims were drowned.”

Clay shakes his head. “No. All of them were strangled.”

She looks at him, and he shrugs helplessly. “I know. We can’t even be sure it was the same guy, but the whole sinner thing? That’s just too close.”

She doesn’t disagree, and she chews her lip tentatively. “Did you try talking to the rest of the girls? See if anyone knew her and if she was missing?”

“No. I came right here.”

She nods and it gets quieter, and her heart settles down again as the waiting goes on. Her mind is a tangled mess of thoughts. About the killer and the girl and kissing Elliot in the woods, and isn’t that just a great concoction of emotions to be having?

She can still smell him when she breathes in, and she doesn’t know if it’s all in her mind or if he’s somehow on her clothes. Or her skin. Even though he didn’t touch her. Even though it was her hand on the back of his neck, pulling him against her mouth.

Why would the killer switch M.O.’s? Strangulation is a common enough choice for murderers, especially the ones who like power. Drowning signifies… what?

Washing them clean?

She breathes in and smells Elliot again, and with a frustrated sound, she tilts her head forward and pinches the bridge of her nose.

Jesus. Her mind is all screwed up. She needs to calm down.

“Hey,” Clay says softly, and she feels his hand slide over her shoulder and partially onto her back. He moves in front of her, blocking the view of the uniforms down the hall. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, hoarsely. “I just… I’m fine.” She hasn’t told him about any of this. Not even about the kiss in her apartment building hallway. She should, she thinks, because she feels like he’d get it. He’d give her shit too, of course, but he’d also cut right through the shit and clear her mind.

The door to the victim’s room opens, and an older man in scrubs comes out, and she shoves it all back down deep and focuses.

“Well,” the doctor says, coming up to stand in front of them. “She’ll be okay, but the guy nearly finished her off.”

“He tried to drown her?” Olivia asks.

“Among other things, yes,” the doctor says. “She had a lot of water in her lungs and manual strangulation marks on her throat. I think he tried to drown her in something fairly shallow, like, say, a bathtub. And when she fought him, he tried to hold her down by the throat and cut off her air that way.”

“How she’d get away?”

The doctor shrugs. “That’s your job, detective. I just work on her injuries.”

“Can we talk later?” Clay asks.

“Of course,” The doctor nods and walks away.

She and Clay glance at the victim’s door.

“Maybe you ought to go in alone,” Clay suggests. “You’ve been making headway lately, and she might trust you more.”

Olivia isn’t going to argue. She heads toward the door, and Clay hangs back.

She doesn’t recognize the girl, although there are bruises and swelling that would make anyone a stranger, but she’s pretty sure this isn’t a regular in Lucy’s group.

“My name’s Olivia,” Olivia says, gently. “I’m a detective, and I want to catch this guy.”

The girl has dark hair and eyes and she looks tired. So tired.

“Hi,” she says, and her voice is a mess. “I’m Pam.”

Then they talk.

They talk about how the guy looked ‘normal’ and acted calm.

“He just looked like a regular guy,” Pam says weakly. “He had a bandaid on his nose and he was wearing a hat. He had brown eyes.”

“Tell me more,” Olivia says, and the girl hesitates then. “I don’t care about the prostitution,” Olivia tells her. “I just want to get this guy.”

So Pam keeps talking. About how they’d driven away and he’d given her money for a hotel room, promising her a lot of cash for a full night, and she’d gone in to pay the clerk. How he’d locked the door behind her and then he’d changed.

Then they talk about what he did to her, and she cries. Even with all she’s been through, on the streets, with men she knew, men she didn’t know. She still cries.

When Olivia asks her how she got away, she cries harder and shakes her head. “I don’t know! I was kicking him and kicking him, and I must have finally got him somewhere sensitive. He just suddenly let go for a moment, and I just jumped up and ran. I couldn’t even see where I was going. I kept running into things, but I just ran for the door and once I was outside, I ran for the brightest lights I could see.”

Olivia has mastered the art of distance when it comes to the experience of victims, but she knows that panicky feeling of being attacked, and how desperate you feel when you get away, just for one brief moment. She knows that well.

“You did good,” she says, quietly, and Pam shakes a bit and puts her head down and cries.

“He looked familiar,” she says, after a minute. “I think I’ve seen him before, but…”

“A former John?” Olivia asks.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember!”

“Okay. It’s okay. Would you look at some mug shots and see if you recognize him?”

“Yes.”

Olivia makes a note. “Any detail,” she says. “Anything can help. Even the smallest thing.”

“He sounded like the priest that we used to see when I was a kid. He said that thing. That you reap what you sow.”

“As you sow, so shall you reap,” Olivia says, pensively.

“Yes! That’s it exactly.”

Olivia sighs. It has to be the same guy. “We have officers watching your room for tonight, just in case, okay? Tomorrow someone will be down to talk to you some more and let you look at some pictures.”

Pam nods, looks scared.

Olivia puts a hand lightly on hers, where it lies against the sheet. “We’re going to catch this guy. You’re going to help us.”

Pam just stares at her nervously.

* * * * *

In the hallway, she and Clay walk toward the elevator

“He told her ‘As you sow, so shall you reap’, just before trying to drown her in the hotel’s bathtub.”

Clay shakes his head and stares grimly at her as he pushes the call button. “Guy has a real savior complex.”

She nods. “We have to get over to that hotel.”

Clay nods back.

In the lobby, they head toward the doors, and suddenly Clay stops and says, “Roland?”

She stops too, and looks back, and Clay is looking at a man hovering near the main desk. The man looks back, and his face shows surprise and then breaks into a grin, and he says, “Clay!”

And they walk toward each other and shake hands.

She trails behind, slightly annoyed by this delay in getting to the scene of the crime.

There are a round of ‘How are you doings’ and she stands quietly, trying to be patient. The man is about Clay’s height with a receding hairline and short, neat brown hair and a night’s worth of scruff on his chin.

He looks at her, and Clay says, “Ah, this is Detective Olivia Benson. We’re working a case together.” Then Clay glances at her and says, “This is Roland Wilson, my partner.”

That gets her attention. “Oh,” she says, surprised. She sticks out her hand and Roland shakes it.

And he says, “Well, ex-partner, obviously.” And his gaze slants away.

Clay shifts uneasily and says, “Yeah, but we were partners for five years.”

She smiles and gets the feeling there’s more to it, but doesn’t ask.

“What are you doing here?” Clay asks instead, changing the subject.

“Oh,” Roland says, jerking his head toward the main desk. “A buddy got into a motorcycle accident last week. I just visited.”

“Anyone I know?” Clays asks, concerned.

“No, no,” Roland assures him. “Guy I went to high school with. We keep in touch.”

Olivia watches them thoughtfully. Clearly they’d been close when they were partners, and she feels her curiosity digging deeper.

“What about you?” Roland asks.

And Clay tells him they’re there on a case, visiting a victim, and that someone is killing prostitutes in Brooklyn.

“Shit,” Roland says. “Did you get much from her?”

Clay shrugs, and says, “She was pretty traumatized. You know how I am with victims. You were always the one who got them to talk.” He grins and glances at Olivia and says, “I think that’s why they forced Benson to take me on. She’s better than you were.”

Roland grins at her and says, “Where do you normally work?”

“SVU,” she says. “Manhattan.”

He winces then. “SVU. Ouch.”

She gives him a grudging, faint smile. “It’s not for everyone.”

“No kidding.”

“Clay,” she says, regretfully. “I hate to break up happy reunion time, but we really have to get over to that hotel.”

Clay glances at her and nods and says, “Yeah, you’re right.” He shakes hands with Roland again and says, “Give me a call, okay? We’ll get together, have a beer.”

“How about a ride sometime?” Roland suggests.

Clay shrugs. “Sounds good.”

They end with a wave and she gets a smile aimed her way, and then they’re turning again and walking through the doors into the parking lot, and she glances at Clay and says, “Well.”

He gives an embarrassed smile. “What do you want to know?” he asks.

“Well, first of all,” she says as they walk up on the Pathfinder and he hits the unlock button. “What sort of ‘ride’ are you guys talking about? Is there something I should know?”

He looks at her over the roof of the Pathfinder and shakes his head. “Jesus, Benson, you have a dirty mind. You know that?”

She half-grins at him, and he rolls his eyes. “He’s talking motorcycles. We used to ride a lot when we were partners.”

She points at him. “That’s what was missing. You totally look like a biker. All you undercover narcotics guys do.”

He snorts. “So I’m a big, fat cliché, is that what you’re telling me?”

She shrugs. “Well, if the shoe fits…”

He rolls his eyes a second time and opens the car door, climbing inside. She slides into the passenger seat and then looks at him soberly. “You guys aren’t partners anymore. Where did he transfer?”

Clay puts the key in the ignition but doesn’t turn it. He sits quietly and then glances at her. “Nowhere,” he says, quietly. “He was fired.”

She feels the awkward clench of regret. “Oh,” she says, softly. “Sorry.”

He shrugs. “It’s public knowledge. You could easily find out about it.” He looks at her. “He was one of the officers caught in the prostitution scandal a few years ago. When guys were trading sex from prostitutes for legal favors.”

“Oh.” She has no idea what to say to that.

“I know it’s a bad thing,” he says, rushing on. “And he deserved to be let go, but… I just… he was my partner, you know? It was hard to realize he had that side to him.”

“Yeah,” she says, and she tries to fathom learning something like that about Elliot, and she can’t. She can’t even imagine that he’d ever do that sort of thing. But then, Clay probably thought the same thing about Roland.

Clay continues, “I mean, I know he’s biased and he was probably slanting his story to make himself look good, but I don’t think he’s a bad guy. I think he got caught in something bigger than him, and I think he talked himself into imagining it wasn’t that bad. And after he was fired, his wife left with their 3-year-old daughter, and I just… he’s had it bad, Liv.”

“He’s lucky he didn’t have to do time,” she says, gently.

“I know. Only one of the girls identified him as someone she’d dealt with. Some of the others who were more deeply involved got prison time.”

She nods.

He sighs. “I just… he’s not a cop anymore, and can’t ever be again. He’s paid for his crime with his job and his wife. I feel like there’s no sense in turning my back. He’s struggling, and I want to see him become something good again.”

“That’s admirable,” she says.

He shrugs. “He was my partner.”

And that she understands. “Yeah,” she says.

And he starts the car and they drive to the hotel.

They spend the rest of the night there, and they don’t find much. A little blood that is probably from the victim and a lot of water from the overflowing tub. The sheets have hair on them, and possibly DNA, but who knows how old it is. Hotels are the worst for crime scene processing. Cheap hotels especially.

When she finally gets home, she collapses in a tired heap on the sofa before she even takes off her jacket. For a moment her mind is blank, overwhelmed by the events of the day, before she remembers Elliot.

Has it really been only eight hours since she was kissing him in the woods?

It feels like a million years. She isn’t sure if that’s good or bad.

She’s a little stunned at how intense things have grown between them, and so quickly. She still aches when she thinks about his family, but it’s Elliot. She’s never been able to resist him very well. He’s always been able to get under her guard, and it didn’t matter for so long because he was safe. He was taken.

Now she feels remarkably unbalanced with him, and yet unable to remove herself. Is he right? Would his kids get over it if somehow the two of them… were together? She can’t get over the fact that they would think the worst. They’d have to. How could anyone not?

 _You didn’t do anything wrong. You know you didn’t._

Is that enough? To have that inner knowledge, even if others don’t?

She curls up on the sofa, wearily, and closes her eyes, trying to think.

But her thoughts fade away and she just feels tired. She feels heavy and a little cold, and deep inside she feels the ache for Elliot that never seems to go away anymore.

And eventually, she sleeps.

* * * * *

“Here,” she says to Lucy, and she pulls the pint-sized plastic bottle of Kahlua from her pocket. The rain they’ve been having for days has made the city cool, even in late-June, and at night it’s even cooler.

Lucy, tucked into a faux-fur jacket and a short skirt, has her hands buried so deeply in her pockets that she’s almost hunched over. She slants Olivia a suspicious look. “What is that?”

Olivia turns the bottle to glance at it and then shrugs. “Kahlua. You told me last time you didn’t want coffee. That if I were really your friend I’d bring you Kahlua.”

Lucy stares at her, speechless for a moment, and then says, “That what you want? To be my friend?”

Olivia shrugs. “I want to catch this guy who’s hurting your friends. You look at a sketch for me and see if you recognize the guy.”

Lucy looks at the bottle and frowns. “What, you gonna arrest me as soon as I put my hand on that? Is that it?”

Olivia furrows her brow. “No. What the hell would I arrest you for? Drinking while waiting for an asshole? I’m the one doing something improper here, not you.”

Lucy snorts. “You’re a weird one, Benson.”

“I know it’s hard to believe that someone really wants to get this guy, but I do.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s only a matter of time before he moves on to those ‘good’ women of the city, right? He’s building his nerve on us before he moves up the chain. Better nip it in the bud right now before he starts taking the women who are worth it.”

Olivia feels her good intentions falter a bit. She cannot argue with Lucy about how much the city does not care about her. Or the other girls. She can only prove herself. “There are no ‘bad’ women who deserve to be raped and murdered, Lucy.”

She holds the bottle out again, and Lucy looks at her for a while and then swears and takes it. She takes the cap off and takes a swig and says, “I thought you were supposed to keep us off this shit.”

“Yeah, well, we all do what we have to do to get through our life, don’t we?”

Lucy snorts again. “No shit.” Then she sighs and says, “Okay, let me see it.”

Olivia pulls the copy of the drawing from her pocket. Pam hadn’t found the man she was looking for in any of the mug shot books, but had worked with a sketch artist to get a rudimentary portrait of the man who attacked her. It was woefully mediocre, but it was better than nothing.

Lucy studies it and then asks, quietly, “This the guy who got Pam?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s on his nose?”

“Bandaid. He uses that as a disguise. You’d be surprised at how well it works.”

“Huh.” Lucy’s eyes scan over and over the image, her lower lip caught worriedly between her teeth.

“You ever see him before?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know, Benson. He looks like most of the guys who come around here. I ain’t never seen anyone with tape on their nose like that though.”

Olivia sighs and says, “Well, this drawing was released to the press as a person of interest in an assault case, so he very well may never use it again.”

“An assault, huh? Nothing about him trying to kill us all off?”

Olivia winces a bit. “No. My captain wants us to keep it low key.”

“Right,” Lucy says, and her jaw gets tight.

Olivia slips the drawing back in her pocket and leans against the wall next to Lucy. “Look,” she says, softly. “I know they don’t care about you. Not the police, not the city, not the people. But I’m going to find this guy, because I _do_. And it’s probably better that this isn’t big news. If people start hearing ‘serial killer’ they go nuts. Then the press is all over everybody, including you, and the police brass gets involved and wants all the credit for doing nothing, and everything slows to a crawl because everybody is covering their own ass and scrambling to be the star.”

Lucy stares out at the rain and takes a deep breath. “Why you so interested? You got a story? A bad past and you’re trying to redeem yourself?””

“Yeah,” Olivia says. “Something like that.”

Lucy smiles suddenly. “I wasn’t expecting you to cop to it.”

“Don’t we all have some stories? I bet you have one too. How you got here. I’d like to hear it sometime.”

Lucy looks pensive. “Hmm. Maybe. Maybe. I might tell you sometime, if you tell me yours. If you keep coming around.”

“I’ll be around. At least until this guy goes down.”

Lucy looks at her then, full on, and the antagonism and hardness are gone from her eyes. There is something almost vulnerable there. “I think I’m starting to believe that, Benson. Don’t let me down now.”

Olivia feels surprised, and then surprisingly choked up. “I won’t,” she says, vehemently. “I promise I’ll do my best.”

Lucy nods and then says, “Leave the picture with me. I’ll show it around and see what I can hear.”

Olivia eagerly hands her the drawing and Lucy folds it and puts it in her pocket. “Be careful,” Olivia says. “I mean it.”

Lucy nods, slowly, and holds up the bottle. “Thanks for the medicine.”

Olivia nods in turn and then backs away, into the rain. Lucy watches her go, and then fades back into the darkness.

Olivia feels like her heart has wings.

* * * * *

Clay is already at their bar when she gets there. He’s sitting in their usual place and there’s a glass of beer sitting in front of her empty chair and a pitcher between it and him.

“Hey,” she says, sliding onto the stool next to him.

“Hey,” he says, and he turns to glance at her, and then he does a double-take and he says, “What happened?”

“What?” she asks.

“You,” he says, staring intently into her eyes. “What’s going on? You’re…” He waves his hand in front of her in a flapping like gesture. “Glowing.”

“What?” She looks at him in indignation. “I am not.”

“You really are,” he says. “What’s going on?”

She bites her lip and pauses, but he’s the one person she really wants to tell about Lucy, and he’s the one person who will really understand, besides Elliot. “Lucy,” she says, softly. “I think I’m finally getting to her.”

His eyes widen a bit. “Seriously?”

She nods, and she can’t stop the smile from tingeing her lips. “We really talked tonight, Clay. She took the composite to show the other girls and said she’ll ask around. For the first time I think she really… believed I wanted to help her.”

He stares at her for a moment, his gaze sliding over her face, before he smiles and says, “Holy shit, Benson. That’s great!” She grins at him, and he grabs her shoulder and squeezes and he says, “Damn it! I never doubted you!”

She laughs then, and drinks her beer, and he buys them both two shots and when she slants him a wary look he promises to take a cab home.

They both do their shots, and Clay grimaces at the taste and shakes his head and looks at her with undisguised affection. “Jesus, Benson. Maybe we’re finally going to get somewhere here.”

She takes a swallow of beer to try and wash away the harshness of the whiskey she’s just mainlined and leans on the bar, facing him. “I don’t think we should get too excited. That drawing was really vague. The guy was wearing a wool hat and had the tape over his nose, and he just looks like a million other guys walking around the city. We’ve got nothing specific to set him apart from anyone else yet.”

“I know, I know,” Clay sighs. “But I feel like we’re at least getting _something_ , you know?”

“Yeah.”

They sip their beers and watch the news for a while, and the warmth of the alcohol is pleasant and electric in her head. She feels blessedly loose and relaxed and buoyed by the success with Lucy.

“This is why I work SVU,” she says, almost wonderingly, even though she knows her own reasons, and that they are many. “When you get that trust and you can really help someone…”

Clay looks at her and says, “I’m gonna miss you when you’re gone, Benson. We’ll solve this case and you’ll go back to Manhattan and I guess I’ll get a permanent partner.”

She feels a warmth in her face at his obvious emotion. “Well, we’re not that close to solving this case, unless we get lucky. So I think you’re stuck with me for a while.”

“Right,” he says, glancing down, but he has a crooked smile on his face.

“But thanks,” she says, quietly, a little touched. “I’ll miss you too.”

He looks at her from under lowered lashes and smiles and says, “It’s our first big victory together.”

She grins. “Yeah. I guess so.”

And maybe it’s the alcohol, the looseness in her joints and muscles, the way she feels safe with him that blinds her. She doesn’t react when he starts leaning toward her, and then his hand cups the back of her head and he presses his mouth against hers and the air stops in her lungs.

Clay kisses her and his mouth is warm and firm, and for a moment she is pliant. She can feel the rough scrape of hair on his chin and smell the faint hint of worn leather from his jacket and everything about him is different and new.

It’s nice. And a little exciting. And she could keep going. She could push back and make him use his strength, and his mouth could get rougher and this could be a summer thing that really is as hot as he thinks it would be.

They’re together for now, and they’re walking a thin edge in the darker parts of the city, and it’s only the two of them.

His breath puffs out against her cheek as he exhales and deepens the kiss. She takes a moment, to really savor the difference, but reality is quickly chasing the warm haze away, and in her mind she is comparing him to Elliot, and it doesn’t feel right.

She pulls her mouth back and puts a hand on his chest, keeping him at a distance so she can retreat. “Clay…” she says, and her voice is raspy.

He swallows and resists her push for a moment, and then he sags suddenly and blows a breath out. “Damn,” he says, softly.

“I can’t,” she says.

“You could,” he says, his voice low, so just she can hear him. “It can stay uncomplicated, and it could be what we both need.”

She closes her eyes, briefly, and then shakes her head. Because she knows how complicated things can really get. And they can get there quickly. But also, she just can’t.

“Elliot?” he asks.

And then she nods, and he sighs and takes a moment, and she lets him have it, because he deserves that, at least.

“You have to understand,” she says. “Even if nothing was happening between him and I, there are just so many… things I’m feeling. It’s so… heavy and overwhelming sometimes, and I just…” She mentally flails trying to explain. She just doesn’t know how to explain the two of them to anyone else. “Even if things stayed uncomplicated between us—which I doubt, by the way—it would only make things between Elliot and me ten times worse.”

Clay’s hand is still on the back of her neck, and he sighs again and then squeezes her nape affectionately. “I’m sorry,” he says. “You told me upfront that this was how it needed to be, and I was just hoping you’d changed your mind. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

She smiles faintly at that. “No, don’t apologize for that. Maybe I needed to have it happen too. Just to… really know. That it wasn’t what I wanted right now.”

His hand slips from her neck and he leans back in his chair and he says, “Damn, Benson. You’re killing me. Ouch.”

She rolls her eyes at him, because he knows perfectly well what she means, and he grins back in a way that lets her know it’s all okay. They’re good. And he refills her glass with beer and says, “And what the hell is that bit about ‘even if nothing was happening between you and him’? What’s going on?”

She winces and takes a long drink of the beer and shakes her head. “Nothing.”

“Oh, that’s not nothing,” he presses. “Look, we can just be friend and partners, that’s fine, but this is big drama in your life. You got something happening, you gotta tell me. Otherwise, I’m going to think you’re making it all up just to let me down easy, and then I’m going to be insulted.”

She rolls her eyes again, but he makes her laugh.

She looks at him reluctantly, and he’s watching her with a sly expression and he says, “It was the night he was waiting when I dropped you off, wasn’t it?”

“It was…” she starts, and then she pauses and rubs at her forehead. She is not used to talking about her relationship with Elliot with anyone. Even when she’s required to talk to Huang or a department shrink, she avoids the topic. “It was just… a kiss.”

Clay lifts one eyebrow but doesn’t dig into her with teasing. “I don’t think there’s such a thing as ‘just a kiss’ with you two. The heaviness I get. You two in a room together and there’s so much untold baggage laying there that you can barely move. But ‘just a kiss’ isn’t happening.”

She smiles and looks down at the bar and avoids his gaze. “Maybe not,” she admits. “Which is probably why I ended up kissing him last week in the woods.”

Clay’s eyes widen and then he smirks and says, “Benson! You’re coming around!” She winces at that, and he smiles and drinks his beer and says, quieter now, “Well, small steps then.”

“I just don’t want to take the _wrong_ steps,” she says. And she can’t help feeling like she’s already failed in that regard.

“No one’s immune from that,” Clays says. “No one.”

“There are other people involved in this,” she says. “It’s not as simple as you think it is, Clay.”

“Bullshit,” he says, and she jerks her head around angrily to stare at him.

“What?”

He slides her a heavy look. “You heard me. You don’t say shit about how you feel about him. Ever. All I hear is how complicated things are. How you’ve been partners for 12 years. How you never did anything inappropriate.”

“We didn’t!”

“So good,” Clay says, and he’s turning in his chair and looking at her. Intensely. “So you did the right thing. _That_ was the right thing, Olivia. You had feelings for each other, he was married, so you put it in the backseat and you carried on and you refused to give in. That was the _right_ thing. But the situation changed. The right thing has changed now.”

“So, what?” she demands angrily. “The right thing has now become sleeping with him?”

“You are deliberately avoiding this like it’s a contagious disease, Olivia. Jesus Christ.”

She gives him a dark look, but she shifts uneasily and her heart beats fast. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The right thing is what makes _you_ happy. Because that’s the freedom you have now, Liv. If other people have a problem with that, well… it’s _their_ problem. I’m not saying you have to be obnoxious about it and flaunt it. But this isn’t nearly as hard as you’re making it out to be. I know it feels hard because you both have baggage and you don’t want to hurt anyone. But at the end of the day—hell, at the end of your _life_ \--are you really going to be happily remembering how you did the ‘right thing’?”

She rubs wearily at her forehead. “I am so tired of talking about this.”

“Join the club,” Clay says crossly.

She looks at him. “Maybe we’d better call it a night.”

He doesn’t answer for a while, staring down at his beer, and then he looks over at her and he says, “Olivia, I just don’t want you to regret it all. If I could get inside your head and make you see what I see, I would. But I can’t.”

She swallows and gives him a faint smile. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m trying.”

“Me too.”

She smiles again and puts her hand on his forearm, and he lets his arm drop so her hand slides into his. She grins and threads her fingers with his. “It’d be so much simpler if I just slept with you.”

He snorts then. “Like I’m going to argue with that.”

She shakes her head, and then slides off the stool, and all the alcohol she’s had rushes to her head and makes her sway on her feet a bit. Clay’s hands grab at her hips, and she feels the room stop spinning.

“C’mon,” he says, and he puts his arm around her shoulders to lead her out. “We’ll share a cab.”

“I only live a few blocks from here,” she protests.

“I’m still watching you walk through that doorway,” he says. “Stabler will murder me if I let anything happen to you.”

She huffs out a laugh at that and feels warm at the mention of Elliot’s name, and for a moment she’s almost wistful over Clay. She likes him. If she’d met him earlier… Before all this had happened with El…

But then, Elliot has always lived inside of her in a way that no other man ever has. Even if she had met Clay before, it probably wouldn’t have mattered. Once all of this had blown up between her and Elliot… nothing would have been the same ever again.

“You’re a good partner,” she murmurs as they walk out the door and into the New York night.

“I know,” he says, in mock seriousness. “I’m going to deserve an award at the end of the summer for putting up with you.”

She elbows him in mock outrage, but he’s still got his arm around her and she’s pressed into his side, and all she manages to do is shove him off balance for a step or two, and they both laugh as they nearly fall over.

“Okay,” he says. I think we had a little too much tonight.”

“I’m glad,” she says. “I needed it.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Me too. Besides, we’re celebrating, remember?”

And she does. She remembers Lucy and the hope she’s feeling now, and even this thing with Elliot feels less dire. Maybe Clay is right. She and Elliot did the right thing for years. And it _was_ the right thing. Back then. But now things have changed. And it’s hard to get used to the new paradigm, but it _is_ new. And very different.

There’s a fluttering in her stomach she’s rarely let herself feel, and she isn’t sure what it is. But it makes her feel warm and excited and it makes her think about Elliot in ways that have nothing to do with the stoic, suited detective that usually walks by her side. There’s more heat and skin and shivering involved.

Jesus.

A cab stops, and Clay shoves her in before him, and they ride the three blocks to her apartment in silence, but she still feels the warm haze of goodwill inside of her.

“See ya, Benson,” he says, when she climbs out and unlocks her front door. She gives him a smile as the cab pulls away, and then walks up.

For the first time in a long time, she sleeps deeply and continuously through the night.

* * * * *


	12. Cognitive Dissonance

* * * * *

He gets down on the floor next to his futon, wincing as his knees crack and groan, and uses a broom to swat at the dust there, and the resulting cloud makes him squint and brush at his nose.

Damn. Kids were right. There _is_ dust under there.

He’s never had to dust a day in his life. Laundry? Yeah. Cooking, sure. He’s even cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed and cleaned Kool-Aid off the couch. But he’s never even _thought_ about dusting, and it makes him feel a little inept.

He’s just pushing the dust around with the broom.

He finally gets a hand towel, gets it wet, and then nearly crawls underneath, wiping at the dust. That does it, and he sits back up on his knees feeling fairly proud of himself. It isn’t that he can’t take care of himself, it’s just… he doesn’t want to look lost. Not to his kids and not to his soon-to-be ex-wife, and certainly not to Olivia.

Who is coming over this Saturday morning and will be there any minute, and he really wants her to see that he’s okay with being single again. That he’s perfectly capable. That he’s ready to move on.

Not that Olivia would get down and look under his futon. He’s seen her refrigerator. She’s not Mary Homemaker herself.

And he kind of likes that.

What he and Kathy created for themselves, for their kids, was a good thing. Most of the time. And kids need that normality. That sense of being like everybody else. But he doesn’t need that anymore. He doesn’t want that, especially.

He wants something else now. He wants Olivia. Maybe he’s always wanted that. When you grow up surrounded by a family that you know isn’t normal, you ache for the things that everyone else has. But when you finally get it… sometimes it takes a while to know it just isn’t going to work for you. You keep trying so hard…

All he knows is that the day he met Olivia Benson, something changed inside of him. Something recognized her right away and shifted and bent and started growing around her, and he will never, ever be the man he was before her again.

He hears a car door slam outside, and he stands up with a grimace. Fifty-year-old knees clearly don’t take to dusting under futons very well. He goes to open the door before she can knock.

She’s climbing up his stairs in an old pair of track pants and an NYPD T-shirt that’s seen better days. Her dark hair is tied back, and even with the extra years on her she reminds him of their first year together.

“Hey,” she says, meeting his gaze, and then she smiles faintly and glances away, and he’s still not quite used to this. The new nervousness they feel around each other. “Looks like rain,” she says, nodding toward the dark clouds in the distance.

“Hey,” he says, and he holds the door open as she walks in. “Yeah, weather says there’s a chance all day long. You want some coffee?”

She gives him a look that says he knows better than to even ask, and he smirks and heads to his tiny kitchen to pour out two cups. He pours sugar in both of them, and her voice flows in from his living room. “This is… nice, El.”

He smiles down at the cups as he stirs the sugar in and shakes his head. His apartment is… well it’s fine. It’s just really small.

“Thanks,” he says as he walks into the living room and hands her a cup.

She takes it and sips and she’s looking over the pictures on the walls and the books on the built-in bookcase, and she’s carefully stepping around Eli’s plastic toys stacked along the edges. She stops at Dickie’s graduation photo and asks, “Did he get the job?”

Elliot nods. “Been working for two weeks already.”

Olivia lifts an eyebrow. “How’s he like it?”

Elliot shrugs. “Hell if I know. I ask him and he just rolls his eyes at me and acts like I’m putting him through the Grand Inquisition or something.”

Olivia snorts her amusement and turns away from the photos. “So, where are we going today?”

“You still up for it?” he asks, glancing out the window at the darkening skies.

She shrugs. “I brought my jacket. As long as it doesn’t start storming or anything.”

He shrugs in return. “If you’re okay with it, I’m okay.” He waves her into his bedroom, and she hesitates, eying him with a suspicious look.

He grins. “I just don’t have much room, and I didn’t want to keep this stuff where the kids hang out when they’re here.”

She follows him in then, and he has the maps all laid out on his low dresser and pinned to the walls. She glances around at them, and he sees her gaze flicker toward the bed and then quickly away, and it makes his skin feel uncomfortably warm.

He got a queen-sized bed on sale and he rarely makes it. He just throws the sheets and blankets up toward the headboard and over the pillows, the way his kids used to when they were little. He doesn’t have as many personal touches in here as he does in the living room, but it’s his private space. A small TV and a DVD player, a few books and a few boxes, full of things he’d dug out of the basement and attic of his former home.

It feels both strange and familiar to have Olivia in his bedroom, and he’s not sure why. Maybe because she is one of the closest people to him in his life, and at the same time, one of the furthest. They know each other intimately in many ways, and yet not intimately at all in others.

He lifts a map out of the pile on his dresser and lays it out, pointing to a circle he’s drawn in the center. “This is actually an old farmstead. It’s private property owned by a John Walker. Nick used to hunt on his land a lot, and Walker said we could come out and walk around if we wanted.”

Olivia leans over to look at the map, and he can smell the soap she used in the shower this morning, and the familiar, sweet scent of her hair. The way it makes his pulse speed up isn’t new, but it’s never been so noticeable to him as it is now.

“The, ah, Jersey police never searched it,” he says, softly, watching her, and she’s very close to him. “Walker says he doesn’t think anything is there, but he wouldn’t swear to it.”

She glances at him, and he watches as she registers their proximity, her gaze dropping to his mouth and then back to his eyes again. “Oh,” she says, and he gets the feeling she’d wanted to say something else but forgot her words. “Good idea,” she says.

He lifts one corner of his mouth and holds her gaze steadily, and she finally clears her throat and looks away, stepping carefully back and putting some distance between them. “We should probably drive separately,” she says, glancing at his bed again. “In case one of us catches a call.”

He’s a little disappointed in that, but it makes sense. He’s not technically on call this Saturday, but emergencies happen all the time in their line of work. And she’s only working one case. If a break comes, she has to go.

“Okay,” he agrees. “It’s not far anyway.”

“You know, with a one-way trip of five hours,” she says, pensively, sipping at her coffee. “He could have reached the Poconos if he’d known exactly where he was going.”

Elliot thinks about that and leans back against his dresser with a sigh. “I know. I know how much of a long shot this all is, Liv. I just… I got a feeling, you know? That he wanted her close and he wanted her visible. He wanted to be able to drive out and find her again and wallow in his superiority. He saw it all as a game that he had to win, and he still sees it that way. As long as we never find her, and we never truly know, then he wins. Because he knows something we don’t. She’s still technically under his power as long as he’s the only one who knows where she is”

She nods, slowly, her cup held close to her lips as she stares absently at the maps behind him. “Yeah,” she says. “I feel it too.”

He grabs the pack from his floor that he hasn’t touched since their last search. It still holds the compass and the bottles of water and everything else he felt they might need. He picks up a few of the maps and slides them into a side pocket, and Olivia takes his now-empty coffee cup and disappears into his kitchen with it, and her own.

He hears the water run as she rinses them out, and then she walks back and says, “Ready.”

And he takes a moment to really look at her and smile faintly. Because she’s really with him on this, and no matter what else has happened between them—and he’s well aware that they have already gone two for two on searches and personal issues. They’ve kissed both times—they will always have a bond as partners. It’s reassuring in a way.

He grabs his own department-issue rain jacket and follows her down to his driveway, and she opens her car door and says, “I’ll follow you.”

He nods and climbs in his jeep. She has a little Nissan that she bought after selling her Mustang last year. The muscle car had been ruined for her after the whole thing with Brady Harrison, and he doesn’t blame her.

“I don’t drive much anyway,” she’d said when he’d asked about the Nissan. “Might as well buy something cheap that can sit for long periods of time.”

But it had made him sad for some strange reason. Like… something had been wrecked for her. Like one more thread of her happiness had been cut away forever.

He’d said nothing, but he’d watched her more closely for a few weeks after that. The thing with Olivia though, was that even when she wasn’t fine, she’d insist she was. And she’d act that way too. It was always a matter of reading between the lines. He’d sensed too that there was nothing he could do for her then. As much as he’d fought for her during that whole clusterfuck, he’d not been able to really quell the damage after the fact.

And that got to him.

* * * * *

She follows him along the highways into Jersey, and Walker’s land is only about an hour away, just outside of the sprawling urbanity that makes up a good portion of the state. The property backs up against undeveloped forest and it’s a straight shot to Stephens State Park through a few fences and over a few roads.

They pull into Walker’s long driveway just as it’s starting to sprinkle rain and although there are a few old outbuildings that clearly used to be agricultural in nature, the house is newer, built probably within the last five years. It’s in the sprawling new ranch style that’s become so popular, with stone entryways and arching windows.

John Walker is a big man in his 40’s and he walks out to meet them as they park and climb out and stretch. “You Detective Stabler?” he calls as he approaches. He’s wearing a clear vinyl rain poncho and a boonie hat, and he limps slightly.

Elliot pulls his rain jacket on and smiles before holding his hand out. “Yeah, that’s me. This is my partner, Detective Benson.”

She’s still his partner, no matter where she’s working temporarily.

Walker shakes both their hands and then waves them back down the driveway and off between two of the broken down small barns. “I’ve got a trail that goes back out here.”

“Did you know Nick Dunn very well?” Olivia asks him as they walk. She flips the hood of her jacket up against the rain.

Walker shrugs. “Not really. I used to work with him at a welding company about 10 years ago. We’re both hunters. Usually I hunt my own land and keep it to myself, but I hurt my ankle a while back and had a steel rod put in my leg. It makes it hard to sit out in the cold, so I don’t do as much hunting nowadays. I told him he could come out and hunt it if he wanted. Keep the deer population down.” He glances at Elliot. “They eat every fucking thing. Wife can’t even keep a garden in the summer.”

Elliot ignores that. He doesn’t really care about the ethics behind hunting. “He out here a lot?”

“Yeah, quite a bit. Was pretty successful at it too. He also used to go out to a few of the state parks further west a lot and he’d stop here on the way. He was kind of a bragger. I was into hunting so he thought he could impress me by telling me all his stories.” Walker shrugs and gives them a faint smile. “I thought he was kind of an asshole to be honest.”

“You were right,” Olivia mutters, without looking at either of them, and Elliot smirks a bit as Walker lifts an eyebrow.

When they get past the outbuildings, they reach a two-track dirt road overgrown in long prairie grass that leads off into the woods, and Walker stops and says, “My family used to own hundreds of acres way back, but my grandfather had to stop farming about midway through his life. My dad sold off a lot of it for housing developments. We still have about 10 acres left.”

Elliot steps under the cover of a tree and pulls a map from the pack, and Walker leans over it, interested. “You know where he used to go, specifically?” Elliot asks.

Walker grimaces. “No, not really. He used to go all over the property. He’d tell me when fences were down and stuff. But here.” He points to a place on the map. “There’s a couple of old trailers out there rotting away. Too big and expensive to move to a landfill. There’s also a bit of a junkyard where we’ve thrown old equipment over the years. Be careful. Don’t cut yourself or get hurt. It’s all rusty and God knows what you’ll catch.”

“We’ll be careful,” Elliot says.

“He ever mention other places he liked to hunt?” Olivia asks. “I mean, specifically?”

Walker thinks about that. “Nah, not really. He’s been to nearly all the public hunting places, but he didn’t go out of state much. Jersey doesn’t have much available land for hunting, but he kind of made it a mission to find all the little, tucked-out-of-the-way places. Even if it was only a few hundred square yards. He liked finding all the nooks and crannies in the state.”

“Great.” Olivia sighs, and Elliot glances at her with the same lack of enthusiasm in his own veins. Finding every nook and cranny that Dunn found over his lifetime would take… well, a lifetime. Maybe two if you count his and Olivia’s together.

“You walking with us?” Elliot asks, and Walker shakes his head and rubs a palm over his right leg.

“This weather plays havoc with my leg. I don’t do much hiking anymore. You go out and look around. Just be careful. I don’t want anyone getting hurt back there.”

They promise to watch their step and then they fall in together on the dirt road, and Walker watches them for a while and then starts back toward the house.

Despite the rain it’s a warm summer day, but without the burning heat of the sun on their necks. They watch the sides of the trail as they walk, but neither of them thinks the body would lay this close to the house and outbuildings. In the summer heat, the smell would have driven Walker to investigate.

The rain ticks staccato against the vinyl of his hood, and though it’s not heavy, it quickly dampens everything around them, filling the air with the scent of wet grass and bark.

“You think he could have gotten Mary back here without Walker noticing?” Olivia asks him.

Elliot glances at her and tilts his head a bit. “Sure. He could have parked on the road around the north side and walked in through the woods. Or maybe Walker was gone that day.”

Olivia nods slowly in agreement and scans the woods behind him. “Ten acres isn’t much for private property, especially when it’s being actively hunted by the owners. He couldn’t just leave her lying out here without them noticing eventually.”

“Yeah,” Elliot says, glancing around. “If she’s here she’ll be hidden somewhere.”

They exchange wary looks and walk on, and in the constant tap of the rain, there is a peace. The birds and the cicadas are mostly silent, and he listens to the sound of their footsteps on the trail and the rain against the leaves. It feels isolated and calm, and he’s glad she’s with him.

“Dickie’s going camping tonight,” he tells her. “On the beach. With a bunch of friends.”

She slants a smile at him. “Sounds like fun.”

He frowns at that. “Yeah. Maybe too much.”

“Elliot,” she says, a little chastising. “He’s a good kid.”

“A good kid who doesn’t always use his head.”

She doesn’t say anything to that, and he knows she’s hesitant to give anything that could be construed as advice. She’s always been concerned about his kids and willing to talk about them, but she carefully treads the line between concern and interfering.

“I’m driving up there tonight to check on him,” he tells her, thinking about asking her to go along.

She glances at him. “Does he know you’re doing that?”

“No. If he knew, he’d find someway to stay out of my sight.”

“El,” she says, and she stops walking and stands still on the trail watching him with worried eyes.

He stops and turns to face her. “He’s this close to college, Liv,” he says, holding his thumb and forefinger together in a pinching motion. “I’m not letting him fuck it all up with some stupid stunt.”

“He’s just camping with his friends.”

Elliot shakes his head. “He never just does anything with his friends. There’s always chaos.” He starts to walk again, but she doesn’t follow him.

“El,” she says, again, quietly. “Don’t do it.”

He turns again and looks at her. “He’ll never even know I’m there. I’ll just keep an eye on him and make sure it doesn’t turn into anything bad.”

She gives him a skeptical look. “And what if he does see you?”

He shrugs. “Well, then he’s going to realize that he needs to step up his game a little. He’s not a kid anymore. It’s time to grow up and take some responsibility.”

“And how’s he supposed to do that if you won’t give him any?”

He stares at her and chews his lip carefully, trying to decide how best to explain it to her. “Screwing up now could mean his future,” he says.

“You have to start trusting him sometime. He’s 18.”

Elliot presses his lips together for a moment and then says, “It’s not that long ago we were chasing him around the city.”

She sighs and he can tell that she’s trying to tiptoe around what she feels is a sensitive subject. “He wasn’t necessarily in the wrong then, El. You said so yourself.”

He looks at her for a while, and surprisingly, feels himself start to relent. She’s right. Dickie had been angry, but his heart had been in the right place. And he’d had reason to be angry. Since that day, things had been better. Not perfect, but quieter.”

“Give him the chance to mess up before you go charging in there and tear it all down,” Olivia says, softly.

He stares at her, but feels hesitation creep up on him. “I’m worried he’s going to mess up when he’s on his own at school, Liv.”

“What are you going to do?” she asks. “Stake-out Dickie’s dorm room and watch it day and night, waiting for him to screw up?”

He swallows. His son goes off to college by himself in only six short weeks. If he can’t be trusted now, how can he be trusted then?

“I don’t know,” he says. “I just… I want him to be…” He trails off, not knowing exactly what he wants his son to be.

“Like you,” she says, finishing the thought for him, and he can hear the way she’s trying to press her point without angering him. “As responsible as you were when you were 18. Except you and he have had very different childhoods, El. And that’s a good thing.”

“He’ll make mistakes,” he says, almost absently, and it’s more a revelation than a protest.

“Yeah,” Olivia says. “And he’ll learn from them. Like we all do.”

He takes a deep breath and lets it out again, feeling the fight go out of him. “Yeah,” he says. “Shit.”

She waits and watches him, and he thinks, _You’re good for me_.

“You and Kathy raised him right, El, no matter what’s happening now.”

He looks at her then, and there’s emotion in her eyes: concern and sympathy, but also a strength that he realizes he needs.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

And she wraps her hand around his arm and squeezes briefly before starting to walk on down the path. He falls in beside her.

The two-rut road comes to an end on the edge of a large clearing. There are random pieces of rusty metal machinery lying in the grass and the rain taps almost melodically against them.

They walk around the big pieces, using the ever-present search sticks to move the foliage away and look underneath. The crickets and cicadas are more present here, and the legs of his jeans grow soaked as he wades through the wet prairie grass.

“It wouldn’t be a bad place,” Olivia says, looking around. “If you wanted to hide a body here. Easy markers and some protection from the elements. It’s clearly not a place that Walker spends a lot of time in.”

Elliot agrees, and yet he doesn’t feel it. It’s too… close. It’s on someone else’s property and it would be under someone else’s control, and he just feels like Nick Dunn wouldn’t have liked that.

Olivia glances at him. “You aren’t feeling it,” she says.

He looks at her, still surprised after all these years that she can read him so well. “No,” he says. He tells her why.

She nods, sighs. “Yeah,” she says. “Good point.”

They keep walking though, and he takes the camera out of the pack and snaps a few pictures of the junkyard, using his hand to shield the lens from the rain.

About an hour later they move out of the junkyard and walk along a narrow path through more woods to another clearing, and there are the trailers. They are decades-old campers, with water pumps and electrical hook-ups, that used to be towed behind trucks, before RV’s took over the market.

On one of them, the ceiling is caving in, the other has dents on all sides and missing windows. They are also surrounded by junk, and there are more pieces of old machinery lying dead here. He steps up on an old generator to look in the window of the dented trailer and Olivia says, “El, be careful.”

“Yup,” he says, and the interior of the trailer is dark and dirt-filled. There’s a tree growing up through the floor. He doesn’t see anything except a few dead rats, and there’s no smell of decay, not even from the wildlife.

 _Trailers would be too obvious_ , he thinks.

He climbs down again and takes the camera out. He doesn’t think they’re going to find anything here, but he’d rather have some solid memories of the place, just in case.

Olivia wanders around the rest of the clearing, looking at the machinery, and he resists the impulse to call out and tell her to be careful, the way she did with him. She’s just walking. He can be over-protective, he knows. And it risks coming off like he doesn’t think she can handle her own job, something he knows very well that she _can_ do, and often better than him.

It’s about policing himself to keep his most intimate thoughts inside and not let his feelings show. Old habits…

“What’s that?” she calls from fifty feet away, and she lifts her stick to point north.

He looks and the land dips down and then runs back up, and there’s another clearing through more woods and there’s a tree with a wooden ladder hammered onto it, and a platform built in the V of the branches. “Deer stand,” he calls back. “We should check it out.”

She waits for him while he stows the camera again and walks toward her. Together they find the path and head toward the tree. It starts to rain harder as they walk, and he thinks they can probably call it quits pretty soon. He glances at Olivia as they move, and he can only see her nose and her mouth sticking out from her rain hood.

He wonders if she’d have dinner with him. It’s logical. They have dinner all the time. Just not… with such confused intentions between them. He’s feeling more confident though. She is not going to run from him, and she is working through things, he knows. But she kissed him during their last search a few weeks ago, and he can feel her lack of resistance.

Another thought comes without warning. That this is the kind of day he’d love to spend in bed. With her. Warm and on top of her. Inside her. With the rain thumping against the roof.

He swallows uncomfortably. He hasn’t even gotten close to sleeping with her. He has no real idea what it would be like, but the mental image his mind produces gets him half hard and far too focused on her.

He lags behind a bit, using his stick to poke at the foliage, trailside. She glances at him but moves ahead as they break the clearing and the tree comes into view.

He wonders if she’s having as much of a disconnect seeing him as something other than her partner. Of course she is. How could she not? 12 years is a long time. He’s amazed sometimes that the attraction never died. It occasionally slipped into something more comfortable, like siblings, from time to time, when they were both more distracted and had safely put the attraction away. But… it flared up as strong as ever once he got free.

Jesus.

He watches as she approaches the tree and puts her hands on the wooden planks of the ladder, testing them for sturdiness. When she puts a foot on the bottom rung, he yells, “Be careful!” at her, not able to help himself.

She waves at him dismissively and then climbs up, one careful step at a time. She doesn’t go all the way. She gets up high enough to stick her head above the platform and look around, and then she twists and looks out over the property, back toward the house. He walks closer.

She glances down at him and shrugs. “I don’t see anything.”

“I don’t think this is the place,” he says.

She backs down a step and glances under the platform, sticking her hand in the V of the tree, but comes up empty.

“Come down,” he says. “I’ll climb up and try too.”

She starts down, quicker than she went up, and he says, “Careful,” again, because he can’t help it.

“I’m fine,” she says, sounding annoyed, but the branches that protect the tree and the stand from the rain are high, and the angle is broad, and the lower rungs of the ladder are soaked through and worn smooth. When her foot hits the last rung, she slips.

“Liv!” he says, panicked, as she slips down and falls the short distance to the ground. She makes a wordless sound of surprise and lands on her feet, but off-balance. She tips back onto her ass on the ground and rolls back. He scrambles down beside her and leans over her. “Liv?”

She looks up at him in surprise for a beat, and then she cracks up. “Did that look as graceful as it felt?” she asks, grinning at him.

He sighs in relief, not nearly as amused, but more relaxed. “I told you to be careful,” he argues.

She leans up on her elbows and says, “I fell like one foot, Elliot. I’m fine.”

“People break their legs stepping off the curb,” he protests.

She rolls her eyes at his concern, but smiles a bit and says, “Well, I guess you’d have to be my hero and carry me out then.”

He smirks a bit at that, and then he just looks at her, and he’s still leaning over her and it’s… intimate. “I’d carry you anywhere,” he says, softly.

She swallows, hard, and he watches her throat. Then her lips part, and she holds his gaze and doesn’t look away from him. He dips his head closer, telegraphing his intention all the way, so she can pull back if she wants. But she doesn’t.

He puts his mouth on hers lightly, just barely tasting, his knees aching with the way he’s bending over, all his weight on them.

He pulls back then, waiting, and he can feel her breath, warm against his lips. His hood is blocking the light, and the rain from them both, and the steady tapping of the drops against his back makes it all the more intimate somehow.

He breathes for a while, and then he kisses her again, and this time he wraps his hand around the back of her neck, holding her head so he can kiss her with force. Her mouth moves with his, and her lips part, and he feels her tongue against his, and he almost groans with the want of it all.

He wants more. He wants more of her heat and more of her mouth and more of everything, and she slides her hands inside his jacket and over his shoulders, and her fingers slip under the collar of his T-shirt and onto the bare skin of his back, and he just… lets go a little bit.

He breaks the kiss and unzips her jacket, wrenching the sides out of the way and sliding on top of her. His own is already unzipped and her body feels warm through the thin fabric of their T-shirts. She lies back on the ground and shifts underneath him, one leg bending at the knee, and then he’s cradled between her legs, and they’re both warm and solid and pressed together, and she is soft everywhere. He keeps his weight on his elbows and kisses her again, and he wants to swallow her whole.

The warm, wet silkiness of her tongue is making him hard, and all he can hear is their breathing mixed with the rain. He slides a hand down her side, and there’s a gap at her waist where her T-shirt has pulled up. He slips his hand underneath and onto the bare skin of her side, and she jerks against him like she’s been shocked.

He pauses then, his mouth against hers, his hand on her skin, and his cock pressed between her legs, the heat there burning him even though they’re both clothed.

He moves his hand a bit, up over her ribs, and she closes her eyes and pants against his cheek, and he lets her get used to it. Her hand slides to the back of his neck and pulls him forward, and he opens his mouth and kisses her again. It’s a slow, deep, hot slide, and it makes his whole body tighten up against her.

He pushes against her, like he’s trying to thrust inside of her, and it feels so good he almost groans. He moves his mouth over her jaw and down her neck, and he puts his open mouth on her skin and sucks at it, gently, then licks it away, and he doesn’t know how he expected her to taste, but this is right. It’s her. It’s indefinable.

Her fingers dig into his nape, and her breath exhales harshly, and he just wants to keep going. He wants to shove her pants down and break right through his and get inside her and lose it.

But the rain starts to run in streams off his hood down into her hair, and he can feel it soaking through his clothes, and as he hesitates and presses his forehead against her temple the urgency relaxes a bit.

Under him, Olivia suddenly relaxes too, and he hears her inhale quietly.

From the direction of the house there’s a brief car horn and a yell. It sounds friendly, not alarming, but it underscores how deceiving their isolation is.

He pulls reluctantly away from her and sits back on his knees.

She sits up and is silent for a moment, and he waits for whatever she has to say. The rain is soft between them.

But she runs a hand over her wet hair, pulling it back from her eyes and smoothing it down, and then she says, “We should get going.” And she climbs slowly to her feet.

He watches her silently for a moment, and then stands with a grimace and the hint of a groan in his throat as his knees twinge. She turns away, but he sees the bare thread of an amused smile on her lips, and it makes him feel warm.

“Hold on,” he says, and he climbs up the ladder on the tree to investigate the deer stand himself. From the platform, he can see all the way back to Walker’s house, and the road beyond. But Olivia was right. There’s nothing particularly unusual or illuminating about it.

There’s nothing on the platform itself, nor in the branches of the tree, and he climbs back down and they start walking back toward their cars.

“This is really getting us nowhere,” Olivia says as they make their way back through the junkyard.

He sighs, because she’s right. He’s just not sure what to do, and at least this makes him feel like he’s doing _something_. Plus… it’s time spent with Olivia. And he guiltily wonders if somehow that’s his primary motivation now. “We need to find a way of narrowing down the possibilities,” he admits.

“Have you talked to Nick Dunn’s family lately?”

He shrugs. “I’ve tried, but most of them are clinging to the belief that he was railroaded and Mary just ran off. They don’t want to tell me anything.”

She frowns. “Maybe if we tell them we just want to know the truth. That if they can give us more information, and we can search and Mary isn’t found that it will lend credence to their theories.”

“Maybe.” He doesn’t hold out much hope for Dunn’s family. They were the fuckwits who raised Dunn after all.

Their conversation falls off, and they hike most of the rest of the way in silence. It feels companionable to him, and still a little intimate with the rain and the lateness of the day. Olivia doesn’t avoid him, but walks right next to him, their shoulders occasionally bumping, and he thinks that what he really wants is to keep the day going into the night.

“Well,” he says, “Since I have a sudden lack of plans tonight thanks to you, do you want to have dinner?” he asks as they exit the woods behind the Walkers’ outbuildings. And he holds his breath then, because as flippantly as he phrased the invitation, it means more.

She pauses, but then she puts her hands in her jacket pockets and looks at him and says, “I can’t, El. Sorry. I have plans already.”

“Oh.” He’s disappointed. Greatly so. These search days have become sort of their time together, even if they’ve only had a few of them so far. He swallows it though and asks, “Big plans?” With a casual indifference.

“I’m meeting Clay for dinner.”

He feels an instant annoyance.

What? He grits his teeth as the jealousy stabs through him. She says it in a very casual way, not hesitant at all, and he knows, logically, that if she had something to hide, she’d hide it. And he’d be able to tell.

But he’s never been objective when it comes to Olivia, and he knows how Olivia is in a partnership. He knows. That she could have something like that with someone else…

“You’re working on a Saturday night?” he asks, and he’s setting her up. He realizes this.

She shrugs. “No, not really. We’ve been working different angles all week and we’ve barely seen each other. We need to catch up.”

“For a temporary partner you’re sure spending a lot of time with him,” he spits out before he can stop himself. His gut is churning.

She stops walking and turns to face him. Her eyes hard. “What does that mean?” she asks.

He wants to stop. He does. His heart is pounding and his stomach is turning and he is afraid and angry at the same time, and as he looks at her, the anger wins. He feels that line snap and maybe it’s all his broken expectations, or maybe it’s his fear of losing her, or maybe there’s even some leftover anger all the way from her stint in Oregon that has been festering inside of him.

“Are you sleeping with him?” he demands.

“No!” she retorts, looking at him like he’s gone crazy.

Like _he’s_ the one who’s crazy, when she has a new partner who looks like every cliché hot detective on TV, and she’s the one running away, and she’s the one blowing him off to spend time with Clay.

“Do you want to?” he asks, and he can hear the interrogation tone in his own voice.

“No!” she says again, angry now. She meets his gaze with her own steely look. “And even if I did it’s my own business!”

He glares. “You can say that? You can say that after what we just did out there under that tree?”

“I can say that because we aren’t _dating_ , Elliot! I can say that because you aren’t actually even _divorced_ yet!”

“My marital status has nothing to do with this! It never has,” he argues.

She stares at him incredulously. “Right,” she says. “Just like the last time you were getting divorced. I’m not making that mistake again.”

Mistake? Again? What? “We might not be officially dating,” he says. “But we’ve sure got some shit going on, Olivia.” There’s a warning tone to his voice that he doesn’t want to be there.

“Yes,” she says, enunciating each word with aggravation and coldness, and then he knows she’s really angry. “Hence my _not_ sleeping with Clay, Elliot.”

“But you want to,” he accuses, and his own anger is coiling rapidly in the pit of his stomach.

She stares at him with tight lips and resentful eyes. “You know what?” she asks calmly. “Screw you.” She turns and starts walking away.

Anger boils up inside of him, and he quickly follows. “Apparently not today,” he snaps.

She glances at him with cold fury. “I’m leaving, “she says through gritted teeth. “Get the fuck away from me.”

“That’s right,” he says, stopping his tracks. “Run away again.” He wants to hurt her. He wants her to think she’s losing him. He wants her to goddamn _feel_ something extreme towards him.

She doesn’t bother answering him. She just keeps walking toward the cars, and he wants to run after her and start shouting. He wants to shake her. He wants to provoke her into a fight. He wants to stop her from leaving. He wants to cry in frustration. He wants to apologize. He wants…

He wants her to love him.

He feels the knife-pain of it slice through his gut, and he grinds his teeth together until his jaw aches.

She climbs into her car and starts the engine, and he glares at her the entire time, but she doesn’t spare him a glance. She turns the car around and drives away, and he realizes he’s breathing like he’s just run ten miles and his whole body is tight and tired and his eyes and throat are burning.

Behind him, a screen door opens and closes on the house, and he hears Walker walking across the wooden deck, so he yanks his hood back and lets the rain pour down over his heated skin and then he turns with a forced smile to shake Walker’s hand.

The rain feels cool and shocking and it slowly washes his anger away.

* * * * *


	13. Acceleration

* * * * * *

She drives back to Manhattan with a stone of anger in her gut.

 _Goddamn it._ Why does this always happen? How do they get along so well for so long and then just blow everything to shit like this? She is accustomed to his jealousy when it pertains to their partnership, and even, sometimes, when it clearly interfered with her personal life, but it’s different somehow now. And it’s certainly premature.

It is ironic, she thinks, that for so long it was Kathy who worried over their partnership. That it was Elliot’s wife who had to bite her tongue and sit at home and watch her husband walk off everyday and wonder if he felt something more for the partner he rode with.

And now it’s Elliot in that position, and he’s not doing very well.

Somehow though, she feels that Kathy probably handled it better than either of them has been.

When she gets to the restaurant where Clay is waiting for her, she sits for a moment in the car and takes deep breaths. She feels tangled and on edge and angry and somehow… desperate, and she’s not completely sure where all those emotions are coming from. She and Elliot bicker all the time. There’s nothing new here. Even the personal nature of the barbs is par for the course.

Except it _is_ different.

Elliot has been set free, and she thought there’d be time. That he would be busy with the divorce, and maybe even missing Kathy, and she would get some distance, and then, maybe, later on when things had settled down a bit, they’d talk and be friends and see what came of it.

But he’s not waiting at all, and she remembers last time when he had the divorce papers signed, and Kathy had urged her to help him move on, and she’d tried to do that. Even, maybe, possibly, had some strange ideas of her own about that time. Only to have him corner her in the courtroom and tell her Kathy was pregnant. And then that he was moving back.

And she’d been happy for him. She really had been. Because as complicated as their feelings had been, she’d accepted then that he hadn’t been meant for her. That partnership was important, and maybe even better. Because she got parts of him that no one else did. He looked out for her, and she looked out for him, and that had been enough.

She realizes her mouth is dry and her breath is hard, and she digs the heels of her hands into her eyes and takes a long, slow, deep breath to calm down.

He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing, she thinks. He’s used to one sort of relationship, and she’s used to a different sort, and they are not compatible. The job has forced them into a bond that they both value, but it’s exaggerating their emotions. You can’t be with someone everyday, seeing the horrible things together that they see, experiencing the things they experience, and stay neutral toward each other.

But once that part is gone… What then?

Her cell phone beeps quietly, and she glances askew at it, apprehensive. She’s not sure she wants to see or hear what Elliot has to say right now. But when she picks the phone up, Clay’s name is on the text.

 _I can see your car. The way it works is you come inside the restaurant and they serve you food in here._

She huffs out a laugh.

When she gets inside, he is sitting at a table by the window, and he already has a glass of wine sitting in on the table in her spot, and she feels a wave of affection for him. Two months ago, if this had happened with Elliot, she’d have gone home and sat in the darkness, brooding over it, because she’d have had nowhere else to go. Her usual sounding board _is_ Elliot. When he’s the cause of her problems, she finds herself floundering a bit.

“Finally,” Clay mutters, as she sits down and immediately sips her wine. “I was beginning to wonder what the hell you were doing out there.”

“I had to think,” she states, grabbing for a piece of bread that sits in a basket in the middle of the table. She dips it into a pool of olive oil, garlic and pepper that sits in a saucer nearby and occupies herself with chewing.

“You look upset,” Clay says.

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “I’m fine.”

“You had that search with Stabler today,” he points out.

“So?”

“So?” He lifts his eyebrows, and she shakes her head and looks away.

The waitress comes over, and Olivia orders the spinach lasagna. She doesn’t think she’ll eat much, and it heats up well the next day. Clay gets a steak, as usual, and then they settle back and he stares at her over the table.

“What?” she demands.

“What’s wrong?”

She sighs.

“Benson,” he says, leaning forward over the table. “I may not know you very well in the big scheme of things. But I know you well enough to see that something happened today, and you’re hurting. Tell me.”

She stares back at him for a long moment, and then sags back in her seat. “I don’t know, Clay. I don’t know how he and I can be so… so… completely in synch one moment, to the point of knowing each other’s thoughts, and then so angry at each other the next that we _try_ to hurt each other. I just… what _is_ that?”

He blinks at her for a moment, and then lets out a snorting laugh and says, “You’re kidding me, right?”

She glares at him. “No. I’m really not.”

He leans forward again, looking her right in the eyes. “Benson,” he says again, with an annoyingly amused tone to his voice. “Two peas in a pod one minute and want to kill each other the next? It’s fucking called _love_!”

She flashes him an irritated look. “I know what love is, Clay.”

He lifts his eyebrows. “Do you? I wonder sometimes.”

She sighs. “Look. Elliot and I have been together as partners for 12 years.”

“So you keep saying,” Clay says dryly.

She ignores him. “I’m just saying… It’s a real bond, but… It’s also the job. We’ve been through a lot together and it just… I know it’s natural, to have some feelings after sharing that much. But how does that translate into a relationship outside of work? Once the partnership is gone, how do we know we’ll have anything left?”

Clay sighs, more serious now. “You give it a try and see.”

“We don’t have much in common.”

“So? Sarah and I had nothing in common when we first started dating. She was this cheery nurse who loved college football and bad jokes. I was just interested in my motorcycle and being this tough guy cop. She took me to games, and I took her riding, and we both gave it a try because that’s what you do. You try new things for the people you love. Eventually I loved football and she loved the weekend rides so much she actually went out and bought a full set of leathers.”

Olivia sighs and rests her chin in her hand, watching him. “I hate the way you make me feel optimistic.”

“I know,” he says dryly. “It’s such a chore being positive.”

She shakes her head but smiles, before making a frustrated sound and rubbing at her face tiredly. “God, I’m so bad at this!”

“I think he knows that already.”

“Yeah, well it’s not like he’s perfect either.”

“I’m sure.” He leans back and studies her. “You’re always looking for the reasons why you can’t do this. Why don’t you try finding a few for why you can?”

She swallows and shrugs, not disagreeing.

A salad appears in front of her, and she watches as the waitress fusses with their drinks, and then she’s gone again and Clay picks up his fork and says, “Now, can we talk about the case for a while? Because believe it or not, I don’t actually spend all my time thinking about Stabler and how to get you into bed with him.”

She laughs. “Yes,” she says, with no small amount of relief. “We can talk about the case.”

And really, she thinks, maybe this is how a partnership should be: friendly and supportive and sharing information and good food. Not that she and Elliot hadn’t had that at one time. Just… things change.

And maybe all change isn’t bad.

Maybe.

* * * * *

On Sunday morning he wakes to his cell phone vibrating on his night stand. The sun is pouring in through the blinds he forgot to close, and he squints against the glare. The clock tells him it’s already eight, and he feels like he has sand in his eyes.

He fumbles his phone and glances at the screen and Dickie’s name is there. The son that was camping the night before with friends. Un-chaperoned.

“Hello,” he says, urgently, when he answers.

“Dad,” Dickie says. “Don’t freak out.”

“What happened?” he demands, swinging his legs around to sit on the edge of the mattress.

“Nothing!” Dickie insists. “I haven’t been arrested and no one is hurt, okay? Just let me explain.”

“Okay…” He is skeptical, and it is there in his voice.

“We’re on our way home and Jason’s car blew a tire.”

“And?”

“And I got out to change it, and that’s when I found out the idiot took the spare tire out of the trunk so he could fit the cooler back there.”

Elliot sighs. “Well, that was smart.”

“I know. Sorry. Jason’s mom isn’t home. She went away for the weekend, so she can’t bring us the spare.”

Elliot rubs at his sandy eyes. “Alright. Tell me where you are. I’ll be there in a bit.”

Dickie tells him, and he hangs up and then he goes into the bathroom to get some water on his face. He’d wisely resisted the lure of the whiskey last night after he and Olivia had fought, but he hadn’t slept well.

He’d shifted between feeling regret, realizing he’d over-reacted, and anger, when he wondered if she had spent the night with Clay.

He throws some track pants on and a T-shirt and grabs his keys and wallet and then heads out to his jeep. He calls Kathy on the way to tell her what he’s doing and where Dickie is, and she sighs just like he did and says something about Jason’s mom being a nice woman whose husband died in a car accident a few years back. Elliot vaguely remembers the incident.

At a stoplight, he checks his texts, and there’s nothing in his inbox. He stews a bit over that, still wondering about Olivia and where she is this morning. He knows Olivia though. She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t kiss him one minute and then go spend the night with another guy.

The anger and dread in his gut keep propelling him on though.

Clay is her partner, and he knows how partners can get. Jesus. He and Olivia got close really quickly, even though he’d been married.

He has to admit, there’s a little part inside of him that is scared. Scared that it was the job creating those feelings. And now that she’s working a new job with a new partner, her feelings will shift.

 _That’s crazy,_ he thinks. _You don’t erase 12 years just like that._

He’s going to have to apologize to fix this. He realizes that. Everything had been going so well… Even though she’d said she’d wanted some time, she’d still responded to him. He’d been watching her surrender. And then he’d just gotten a little too worried about Clay.

Jealousy has always been an issue in his relationship with Olivia. In a weird way, it’s the only relationship he’s had since he was a teenager where he’s felt so insecure and desperate. The only one where he’s felt jealous at all. It’s out of his usual element.

It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

Jason’s car is on the shoulder of the highway, and he sees Dickie, Jason and another kid sitting in the long grass of a small hill right next to it. They’re at least off the highway in case another car would come in and sideswipe the disabled vehicle, and he feels a bland sort of satisfaction at that.

Jason gives him a sheepish look as he climbs out of his jeep and hunkers down to look at the tire, and Elliot tries to stay stern.

“I’m sorry,” Jason says. “I know it was stupid to take the spare out.”

“Good,” Elliot says. “Don’t do it again.”

“I won’t. Trust me, my mom is going to have a cow when she finds out.”

Elliot hides an amused smile before examining the tire. There’s a nail in the treads. “Alright,” he says. “This can be patched.” Jason’s face dissolves into relief.

He takes the tire off and hauls it into his jeep and there’s a bigger town nearby that’ll have a place to take it.

“Can we just wait for you here?” Jason asks. “I’ve got a ton of gear in the car. I don’t want it to get stolen!”

Elliot hesitates at that, but then gives Jason his cell phone number and makes him enter it into his phone. “Stay together,” he tells the two boys. “And if anyone stops, tell them it’s being fixed. If they want to stick around and talk to you, dial 911.”

“Okay, okay,” Jason says, and he rolls his eyes.

Elliot gives him a glare but otherwise ignores it, and he and Dickie climb into the jeep and drive toward town.

“So how was the trip?” Elliot asks him when they’re well on their way.

Dickie shrugs. “It was cool.”

“You have any problems?”

Dickie gives him a warning glance. “Dad. It was fine.”

“I’m just asking, Dickie.” There’s another glare, and Elliot corrects himself. “I mean Rich.”

Dickie suddenly jerks upright. “Oh man, you wouldn’t believe Josh’s dad though. He actually _followed_ us up there and hid out in the dunes! He thought we were totally up to no good and was trying to catch us out. Can you believe that?”

Elliot feels his mouth run dry. “Really?”

“Seriously,” Dickie says, outraged. “I couldn’t believe it! He thought we weren’t going to see him or something. And then Josh yelled at him and they got into this huge fight and he made Josh go home. It was unreal. He’s almost worse than you, dad. Josh can’t wait to get away and go to college. He says he’s never going back.”

Elliot swallows and tries to calm his jumpy nerves. “Come on. I’m not that bad.”

“Oh my God, dad. You’re _so_ bad. You’re totally paranoid.”

“Well, I have a right to be, don’t you think?”

“You always think the worst about everybody. I know you chase creeps all day long but that doesn’t mean everyone in the world is bad.”

“I don’t think the worst about everybody.” Elliot feels a little broadsided. He’s strict, yeah, but he has reason to be. If they just knew what was out there, they’d never want to step outside of the house. He’s actually being pretty laid-back, all things considered.

“You so do. You thought the worst about Shane and about me. You did it to Kathleen and mom. You’ve probably even done it to Olivia.”

He opens his mouth to deny it again, but then the words come back to him.

 _Are you sleeping with him? Do you want to?_

And there’s a sinking sensation in his stomach. Shit.

He glances at his son, and Dickie is slouched against the seat looking tired.

“Well,” he says. “At least I didn’t hide out in the dunes and spy on you.” And thank Olivia for _that_.

“Yeah,” Dickie admits. “Thanks for not doing that, dad.”

“Sure.”

They find a chain tire store just inside town and the manager tells them he’ll get the tire patched right away, so they go in to the waiting area and Elliot takes a cup of the free coffee sitting on a table inside the door.

There are a few other people sitting around the room, either reading books or watching the blurry TV hanging on the wall that’s showing cartoons.

“Rich,” he says quietly, as they take a seat in the corner. “I don’t mean to think the worst about everybody. I don’t want to do that.”

Dickie glances at him and then stares at the floor.

Elliot takes a sip of the bad coffee and then adds, “I guess it’s something I have to work on.”

Dickie looks at him. “You can’t run everybody’s life, dad. You have to trust me eventually.”

“I know. I do. I just… don’t trust everybody else.”

Dickie sighs and slouches down in his chair, and they watch the cartoons across the room for a while. “Shane was supposed to be on this trip,” Dickie finally says, quietly.

Elliot looks at him.

Dickie glances back. “It was his idea. He loved this park. When we had to decide on a place to go, we decided to pick his park.”

Elliot stares at his son and then slides his arm across the back of his chair. “I’m sorry, Rich.”

“We wrote stuff about him in a yearbook and then buried it in the sand. Pretty stupid, huh?”

Elliot is speechless at first, then touched, and he aches for his son and how much he clearly misses his friend. “No,” he says, quietly. “Not stupid. Not at all.” He slides his arm down to rest against Dickie’s shoulders, and Dickie doesn’t jerk away or give him an exasperated look.

Instead, they sit quietly and breathe.

And it’s perfect.

* * * * *

Sunday is a brilliantly sunny summer day, living up to its name, and Olivia sleeps late and then takes a walk near noon to get some tea. It’s been a long week of late nights and   
bad coffee, and she doesn’t think her stomach can take another cup.

In the fresh air markets that pop up around the city in the summer time, she finds some strawberries and peaches and fresh bread and cheese, and with a few other items she figures she’ll be eating well for a few days at least.

It’s nice to be out in the sunlight and talking to people. Working nights, and especially the last few nights when she and Clay went their separate ways to track down more leads, she hasn’t talked to anyone much if it’s not questioning about the case.

Except for last night with Elliot, of course.

Her anger has faded with a good night’s sleep, and now she just feels melancholy. A little off-balance. This is not a new thing with Elliot, and that’s the strange part. Because he’s always been a little jealous when she works with someone else, but she’s always been able to handle it. Understood it even, because he’s worked with other partners too, and she didn’t like it.

But somehow it’s different now. More personal in a way, and she guesses that makes sense, but it’s frustrating too.

The day is gearing up to be a hot one later in the afternoon, and she walks slowly, enjoying the warmth and just not being at work. She needed a day off, she thinks. And it’s not often she’ll admit that, even to herself.

When she turns the corner onto her block, she sees Elliot sitting on her steps.

She hesitates for a moment, surprised and yet not. They have a fight. They make up. It’s the way it works. He holds a grudge less fiercely than she does, but he can be moody. Eager to make up within hours one time, angry for a week the next.

He looks up and sees her as she approaches, but he stays sitting and he presses his lips together in a faded, pained smile.

“Hey,” she says softly as she leans against the stairs railing. “You keep waiting on my steps like this and people are going to start talking.”

He lifts one corner of his mouth wryly. “Yeah, I think that ship has sailed.”

She smiles, a little bashfully, and then lowers herself beside him on the step. He’s in track pants and a T-shirt and he always takes up so much _space_ with his body. With his presence. Just sitting next to him she feels enveloped.

He stares ahead at the street and says, “I’m, uh…” He pauses and his jaw muscles work as he clenches his teeth and sighs. “I’m sorry. About last night.”

She glances at him and waits and stays silent.

“I always think the worst about everybody, and that’s not… That’s not what I want to do.” His voice is low and a little rough, and she has to resist the urge to lean into him. Sometimes they get mad, and all they want to do is hurt each other, but once they see that hurt… They don’t want it anymore.

God, she thinks. Maybe it is love. No one else has the power to hurt her like he does. And she thinks it’s probably mutual.

“Okay,” she says, quietly.

He shakes his head slightly and fidgets uncomfortably and says, “You know, I’ve always been…” He hesitates and then says, “Jealous.” Reluctantly. Like he hates the word, and he probably does, she thinks. “With you. Even back when you were dating Cassidy. Christ.”

She smiles faintly. “Really? I never noticed.” Light sarcasm, and it makes him smile and wince at the same time.

“I just… It was different then,” he continues, turning his head slightly to look at her. “It was easier to handle in some ways because I was married and I knew I couldn’t do anything about it. I could just have the feelings and work them out in one way or another, but the lines were really clear. And now… With everything that’s happening, and all that baggage between us, it’s just… It’s hard.”

She looks at him silently for a long moment, and she can see the lines in his face that weren’t there when they first met. His hairline is higher and his blue eyes a little more tired, but she still gets him. And she knows all those little changes are in evident on her own face too. They earned all those new lines together.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “It is.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” he says. “And I told you back when this all started that I didn’t want anything from you. I promised that I’d give you time and that there were no expectations. And that was bullshit, Liv. Because ever since that day I’ve been doing exactly the opposite. I’ve been pushing you and expecting everything, and I’m sorry.”

She feels conflicted then, in parts. Relief, because he has indeed done just that, but also a little dread. “If I’d wanted to walk away from you, El, I would have,” she says.

“I know,” he says. “But I think I was so desperate to make sure you stuck around that I told you what I knew would work, instead of what I really wanted.” He looks at her then, with a piercing gaze. “But if I thought you didn’t have feelings for me, I wouldn’t have done any of it. I mean it. I’d have just been your partner and hoped you found something—or someone—to make you happy. I’d have been miserable about it, but I’d have done it. But I don’t think that.”

She holds his gaze and her mouth is dry and her heart is beating a little too hard. “You’re right,” she says. “But it’s not all about my feelings, Elliot.”

He nods and rubs a forefinger and thumb into his eyes, tiredly. “I know, I just…” He sighs and shrugs.

She takes a deep breath of the summer air and exhales it slowly. The apology helps. It makes her feel like her feelings matter to him.

She nudges him with her shoulder. “Hey, I got some great peaches and some bread at the market. Why don’t you come up and I’ll make you some coffee, okay?” She stands and stretches a bit and picks her bag up off the ground and looks down at him.

He stays sitting and glances up at her and then shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Liv.”

“El,” she protests, softly.

He holds her gaze. “If I go up there, I won’t keep my hands to myself. I guarantee it.”

She swallows and it’s hard not to watch his shoulders and his arms as he climbs to his feet, the muscles flexing. Nearly 50 and he still looks like that…

“I need a few days to think about this anyway,” he says. “It sure as hell wouldn’t hurt.”

She feels strangely disappointed, but she only nods thoughtfully. “Okay,” she says.

He looks into her eyes for a long moment, and then gives her a faint smile and takes a backwards step down the stairs. “Give you a call this week, okay?”

She smiles back. “You’d better.”

He hops down to the sidewalk with a crooked smirk on his face, and she watches him walk away, the swagger in his stride still evident after all these years.

She should be happy, she realizes, that he’s finally giving her the time she’s wanted all along. It should be a relief—and it is—except…

Except she can’t dispel that sense of foreboding that’s taken root in her gut.

And she wonders exactly how many layers of ‘complicated’ they’re going to have to peel away to get to the final truth.

* * * * *

It’s a long week, and she feels off balance and uncomfortable. She expects Elliot to call despite his newfound insight.

But he doesn’t.

She doesn’t want to press him, but it feels strange. Elliot is a force in her life, one of the strongest, and the absence is… startling.

This is what she wanted, so why isn’t she happy?

 _Because it’s not what you wanted at all, is it?_

And to be honest, she’s just not sure what she wanted. What she wants. To have a chance with Elliot free and clear, with the assurance that nobody, ever, was going to be hurt? Including her?

To just not have feelings for him at all and meet someone else and be happy?

To just ignore everything and go on as usual.

Except that’s impossible now.

She hesitates over her cell phone several times over the week, bringing his name up in her contact list, thinking: _We have to talk._

But she isn’t sure what she wants to say.

It wears her down.

She does call him on Friday, but it goes right to voice mail. So she hangs up and tries to forget about it.

It’s a losing proposition.

Between the stress of the case, and everything happening with Elliot, she feels stretched to the breaking point. Even more so because she can’t get her own mind to settle down. She could have put her foot down long ago, she realizes. He is pushing her, but he respects her. If she’d wanted him to stop—if she’d wanted to keep herself out of the equation—she could have done it. She could have told him that nothing was going to happen between them, and he’d have believed her. He’d have respected that.

But she hadn’t done that. She’d made a few declarations about not wanting to be the other woman, and not wanting his kids to hate her, but when it came right down to the grit of the matter, she’d played right along.

Because as much as he scares her, and as much as she hates the thought of his kids thinking they’d had an affair, she also wants him.

Always has.

And the opportunity to see how it feels, being close to him like that, was too much.

So, what is she doing? Paying lip service to the notion of ‘doing the right thing’ while all the time she is thinking of the next search for Mary Dunn, and whether they’ll get close again?

God, that is ten kinds of messed up!

Both of them are. Maybe they really are meant for each other.

She goes to bed early Friday night just to give her brain a rest from the constant picking.

It doesn’t work.

Near morning she jerks awake from a nightmare in which Elliot lies in a pool of blood in the street, his lifeless eyes open and gazing at her, and she sits up in bed, her sweat cold and clammy, and thinks: _No! It wasn’t enough time! I didn’t have enough time!_

When she sees the sunlight streaming through her bedroom window, she sags in relief, her breath hard in her lungs. She has had plenty of nightmares over the years, many of them about Elliot, but this was different. This had the flavor of regret.

She eagerly lets the dream fade, and gets up and goes right into the shower, washing the sweat away and waking up fully.

Saturdays are her adventure days, and she sits at her kitchen counter and has a cup of tea and thinks about what to do. It’s a warm and sunny July day and she could walk down to one of the many bookstores in the surrounding blocks. Her to-read stack is getting low.

There are probably about eight different festivals going on in the corners of the city somewhere this weekend. There always are.

She eats the last peach from her stash bought last weekend and considers it.

When her cellphone chirps, she sees Clay’s name on the display and she grins. “Hey,” she answers.

“Hey!” he says, brightly, and she hears the rumble of traffic behind his voice. “What are you doing today?”

“I don’t know. Haven’t decided yet.”

“Good. How about a ride?”

She frowns. “On your motorcycle?”

“No, Benson,” he says sarcastically. “On me. Bring a saddle.”

“Ha, ha,” she says, dryly.

“Yes,” he says, sounding annoyed. “On my motorcycle. Roland called me up and we decided to go for it. It’s a beautiful day, and you have nothing to do, and you’ve been moping around all week and depressing me. You need this.”

She smiles at his concern. For a long time she hasn’t had that from anyone except Elliot and the rest of the guys, and on the weekends she’d always had to fend for herself.

“I don’t know,” she says, hesitating. “If you drive a motorcycle the way you drive a car, this could be anything but relaxing.”

“Oh,” he says. “Clever.”

She grins and glances outside. “It is a nice day…”

“It’s a perfect day. Come on, Benson. You know you want to. A big, powerful, thrumming machine between your legs as you ride down the road in the sun.” He pauses. “And the motorcycle is great too!”

She laughs. “Oh god, that was horrible.”

“I know,” he says, but she can hear the grin in his voice. “Sorry about that.”

There’s the sound of a car engine in the background and Clay swears and yells, “Hey, I’m parked here, asshole!”

“Where are you?” she asks.

“Look out your window.”

Her eyes widen, and she slides off her stool and steps to the window, looking down at the street. There are two motorcycles parked below, their riders in black leather jackets. One of them is Clay, and both of them are looking up and waving at her.

“Jesus,” she exclaims. “Give a girl a little time to get ready.”

“Well, hurry up! Just come as you are. The helmet will just mess up your hair anyway.”

She snorts at that. “Fine. Be right down.”

She hangs up and runs to throw on jeans and an old pair of boots, and she grabs an older leather jacket that’s been retired to her closet for years now. It’s tough enough to help protect her, but light enough to keep her from burning alive in the summer heat.

When she gets down to the street, Clay smirks at her and tosses her a black helmet. She catches it and shakes her head at him. Roland sits on his parked bike and gives her a shy smile and a wave.

Clay is the picture of biker masculinity, in his leather jacket and jeans and big boots. His motorcycle is a Harley Davidson: big, heavy and low to the ground. It’s all black steel and chrome and he leans against it lazily like he owns the world.

“You are _such_ a cliché,” she tells him, teasing.

He grins then and stands and says, “Yeah, well, it works for me like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Nice bikes.” She looks between his bike and Roland’s and they look almost identical, except for color. Roland’s bike is red.

Clay shrugs. “Eh, they’re just Fatboys. Everyone has one.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “I keep mine in the basement.” Roland laughs, and Clay just gives her a wolfish grin, and she slides the helmet on and asks, “Where we going?”

“West,” Clay answers, and when she tilts her head and gives him an exasperated look, he just shrugs with a smile.

The Harley engines make her whole body vibrate, and Clay swings a leg over and then kicks the bike up and then motions for her to get on. She slips on behind him and there is nothing to hold onto except his waist, so she grabs him and they go.

It’s all power: The bike underneath her, the wind against her neck and her body, Clay’s hard bulk in front of her. Roland rides just behind them and to the left, and they head toward the Lincoln Tunnel and then out into Jersey and toward the mountains.

Her helmet has a dark visor so she doesn’t have to wear her sunglasses, and at highway speed, the vibrations lessen.

Despite the week, and the fact that she hasn’t been on a motorcycle since just after the academy, when she went through a tough guy phase, she starts to relax. As the city drops away and they get onto roads less traveled, she starts to enjoy herself.

There’s a meditation in the ride. She looks at the scenery and feels the wind and there is no pressure to talk. She is alone with her thoughts.

Clay’s stomach is hard and flexed under her palms, and as she remembers how to ride, she loosens her hold and rests her hands against his hips, loosely gripping his jacket.

It feels good just to have something to do on a Saturday. To be out of Manhattan and the city and just exploring the world. Even if it’s just New Jersey, where she’s been a thousand times.

She almost laughs at that.

She wonders, lazily, what Elliot is doing, and she feels a twinge at that. The fact that he hasn’t called all week is troubling. Despite it all, she misses him.

But that’s a comfortable place for her and always has been. Alone on the weekends and wondering what he’s doing, but knowing his time is not hers to claim. And most of the time she was fine with that, ignored it, but sometimes. Sometimes…

During the times when the cases were hitting too closely, and that thing between them was hard to tamp down…

Those times it was hard, and it felt like this. This strange ache and wistful sensation, mixed with resignation. She suspects—especially now—that he felt it too.

All the same, it’s a feeling she knows well and in a weird way it feels soothing.

She suspects that is not something she wants to encourage in herself. That it’d be easy to fall into a hole and never climb out again.

She doesn’t want to be in that hole. In a place where everything is dark and she can’t feel a thing. It’d be safe, yes, but it’d be living like the dead.

Just no.

Clay grabs her knee as they slow and pass through a town. They turn a corner and he glances back, his eyes questioning through his visor. _Okay?_

She smiles at him and bumps his helmet with hers. His eyes crinkle at the corners as he grins, and then he releases her knee and grabs the clutch again as he downshifts. Then they’re on State 23 and headed for High Point State Park, and she can see the shadows of the mountains in the distance, and it feels good.

It feels like living.

* * * * *

The drive through the park is peaceful and scenic, and they take their time. She feels the rest of her life dropping away and she just exists. She just looks at the world and feels and settles.

It is really a different experience on a bike. Being outside in the weather and the wind, instead of closed up in a car, looking through the windows.

She likes it. Being inside the world, instead of behind the glass, looking in.

As they leave the park though they’ve been riding for a couple of hours and her rear end and lower back are starting to ache from the sitting and balancing. In front of her, Clay shows his discomfort as well, tilting his head from side to side to stretch his neck, and occasionally leaning far forward over the gas tank to get the kinks out of his back. She can see the tip of his tattoo sometimes between the collar of his jacket and his helmet, and has to resist the urge to put her finger there and touch it.

They cross the border back into New York and then turn onto a rural road, and within a few miles there’s an old stone building with a gravel parking lot. They pull in and she sees it’s a restaurant and bar, and there are a lot of bikes parked in neat lines.

Clay helps her off the bike in an absence of noise and vibration and she winces a bit. “My ass is numb,” she states.

Clay snorts. “You toughen up the more you do it.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Roland argues. “He still whines like a baby about his ass every time we take a ride.”

She glances at Clay, amused, and he gives Roland a betrayed look. “Thanks, buddy.”

Roland just grins at him.

They stretch a bit and take off their jackets in the summer heat and walk slowly toward the restaurant.

“They have the best Reuben here,” Roland tells her. “You should try one.”

She shrugs. She’s not a huge fan of corned beef. And when they’re settled in a booth with water and soda in front of them, she orders a cold turkey sandwich with a side of fresh fruit.

“So,” Roland asks as they eat slowly. “How are you guys doing with that case? The one with the guy taking out prostitutes?”

Olivia hesitates at that and glances at Clay. Talking about open cases isn’t the best form, and against regs in many situations, but Roland used to be a cop and there are different unspoken rules now.

Clay glances back at her and then shrugs. “It’s going slowly but it’s going. We’re getting an awful lot about who he is as a killer but not much about who he is in his alternate life as a normal person.”

Roland sighs and nods. “I don’t miss that frustration, I gotta say.”

Clay takes a sip of his water. “We were hoping the vic that survived would remember something else once her nerves had time to settle down, but so far she’s pretty blank.”

“Being attacked by a psycho and nearly killed will do that to you,” Olivia points out. Her mind is never far from the victim.

Clay nods thoughtfully. “I just hate that we might have to wait until he kills someone else to get the clue that breaks the case.”

“Yeah,” Olivia agrees. “We’ve been trying to inform the girls as much as possible though.”

Clay nods again, absently, and then suddenly smiles. “Well, we got Lucy on our side now, so this guy might just be going down soon.”

Olivia laughs at that, and at Roland’s questioning look, she says, “Lucy is sort of the mom of the group of girls right at ground zero of the attacks.”

“She’s something,” Clay says, grinning at Roland. “You’d have loved her.”

They tell some Lucy stories, and Roland laughs and shakes his head and says, “Damn, I miss that job!”

And she feels bad for him. He does seem like a nice guy and she wonders how he got caught up in the mess that got him fired. She still can’t quite imagine it, and she wonders what she’d do if it was Elliot, and still can’t even fathom the idea. Even as close as he’s come to losing his job sometimes. He’s gotten a firmer grip on his temper the past few years, but she doesn’t think he’ll ever lose that passion that drives him.

And it’s a thin line between passion and obsession, fury and fervency.

“She’s doing a lot of our work for us,” Clay continues. “She takes care of the girls, writes down plate numbers, keeps an eye on the guys who aren’t regulars. Shit, we ought to deputize her. Give her a badge.”

Olivia laughs at that, but nods in agreement. She couldn’t do any worse than they were, and maybe she’d even break the case wide open.

The waitress clears their plates away and refills their drinks and in the lull of conversation, Olivia glances up at the TV over the counter. It’s a local news break and there’s a banner across the bottom of the screen that says: _NYPD detective shot while investigating child molestation case._

And she sits bolt upright with her heart pounding.

“Liv?” Clay’s voice sounds distant, and his hand touches her arm, but then he must see too, because he says, “Oh, shit.” And then, “It’s probably fine, Liv.”

She already has her cell phone out of her pocket and there are no messages waiting for her. “I have to make a call,” she says, sliding out of the booth. The lifeless images of Elliot from her dream start battering her memory, and she has to grit her teeth against the fear.

She walks quickly to the door and out into the parking lot and around the side of the building where there are no standing groups of people talking amongst the parked bikes.

She calls Elliot’s cell phone first, but it goes right to voice mail. Still. It makes her worry ratchet up another notch and her mouth run dry. She hangs up and stares at the phone and then dials Fin.

“Tutuola,” Fin answers.

“Fin,” she says. “It’s Liv.”

“Hey, Liv. How’s Brooklyn?”

“Fine,” she says, impatiently. “I just saw the news. What’s going on?”

He makes a confused noise and then says, “Oh, wait. You talking about the detective that got shot?”

“Yes!” she says, annoyed that he’s taking it all so lightly. “What’s going on?”

“It’s okay,” he says, gently. “It wasn’t Elliot.” Knowing immediately why she’s calling, of course.

She breathes a sigh of relief. The images of her dream fading a bit. “Who was it?”

“It was Johnson from the nineteenth,” Fin tells her. “And she was only winged. It happened last night. She’s already out of the hospital. You know how the press is.”

“Yeah,” Olivia says, and she rubs tiredly at her forehead and leans back against the wall of the restaurant. “Christ.”

“Liv,” Fin says. “Something ever happened to one of us, you know we’d call you ASAP, right?”

“Yeah,” she says, because she does know, but… “It just… His phone went right to voicemail the last two times I tried him, and I just… imagined the worst, I guess.”

“He’s not even working this weekend. He’s fine.”

“Okay. Thanks, Fin.”

“Sure.”

They hang up, and she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, feeling the urgency drain away but not the tension. Her stomach is still tied in knots and she’s not even quite sure why. He’s okay, and he’s taking some time. That’s all she needs to know.

She hears footsteps in the gravel, and Clay walks around the side of the building and asks, “What’s happening?”

She shakes her head. “It wasn’t Elliot. Johnson from the nineteenth. She’ll be fine.”

He leans against the wall next to her and sighs. “Good to hear.”

“Yeah.”

He studies her for a moment and then asks, “You okay?”

“Ahhh,” she tries to swallow and her throat is too dry. She wants to tell him she’s fine, because that’s the expected answer. The less complicated answer. But instead she says, “I don’t know.”

“What’s going on, Liv?”

She takes a breath and thinks about her dream and Elliot and everything that’s been piling up for so many years, and then she says, “Let me ask you something. If you’d have known beforehand how it would all end with Sarah, would you have still done it?”

He gets still for a moment and she can feel him staring at her, but she looks out at the highway in the distance.

“What do you mean?” he asks, softly. “Would I have married her anyway if I’d known she was going to die?”

“Yeah.” She glances at him.

He looks her right in the eyes with a hard, unblinking gaze. “Hell yes,” he says, vehemently. “I can’t imagine not knowing her. I’d rather have had one year than nothing. I’d have rather had one _month_ than nothing.”

Olivia winces a bit. “But the end, it had to hurt…”

“It hurt a lot. But thinking about not knowing her at all? Jesus, Olivia… that’s worse.” He sighs. “Is this about Elliot again?”

She doesn’t want to say anything then. It feels like she’s always talking about Elliot with Clay, and they’re always saying the same things to each other and nothing ever gets done.

He clearly feels the same way, because he sighs again, and it’s a sound of frustration. “This isn’t about you being bad at relationships, Olivia. You aren’t that bad. You managed to have a relationship with Elliot that lasted 12 god damned years.”

“But that’s just it!” she protests. “What if doesn’t work? Then what’s left? Look at you! You don’t even want another relationship again. It was that bad for you!”

“I’m allowed that!” he nearly roars at her, and she’s so surprised that she takes a step back from him. “I took that risk and I loved Sarah and I put my entire soul on the line for her! I had that big love and I lost it through no fault of my own, and now I’m allowed to live this life! You haven’t had that! You don’t even want it. You don’t even want to _try_!”

“I couldn’t,” she protests, and she thinks her own voice sounds weak. “And now… I don’t know…” She can’t even get her words out, and she shuts her mouth tightly, clenching her teeth.

“See?” Clay demands. “It’s about fear. That’s all this is. It’s you being afraid to take that step because maybe someone else will misunderstand, or maybe it won’t work out and you’ll have to hurt for a while. And that’s bullshit, Olivia. It’s bullshit because it’s life, and I’ve only known you two months but you’ve never, ever been afraid of life or death. That isn’t you.”

She wants to get angry with him. She wants to snap at him and tell him how wrong he is.

But she can’t. Because more and more she’s realizing that he’s right.

“Maybe it’s too quick,” she says, absently, digging the toe of her boot into the gravel. “He’s not even divorced yet.”

“You feel something for him?”

She gives him a dark look.

“Well?” he demands. “Don’t give me that look.

“I…” she blinks at him, and she feels frozen. “I do have feelings for him,” she says, softly. “I just… his kids will think it’s been going on all along.”

“They’ll get over it,” Clay says.

“I don’t know,” she says, and it feels like such a weight on her shoulders. “I don’t know if I can live with it.”

Clays sighs. Heavily. “Fine,” he says. “Then tell him he needs to move on.”

There’s a stab of coldness in her chest and she jerks her head up and stares at him. “What?”

“You heard me. You can’t take it? Then tell him to move on. Let him go.”

Her throat is dry and there is an empty sensation in the pit of her stomach, and she wants to slap him a little bit. She shakes her head. “It’s over between him and his wife. He won’t go back.”

“No, he won’t,” Clay says. “So? You can’t take it, then let him go. I need a partner, so you can come work with me if you want. Then he can move on and find someone else. That’s what you want, right? He can move on and date around and finally fall in love and be with another woman and his kids will hem and haw and then they’ll fall in love with her too, and 25 years from now they’ll grow old together and you’ll be right where you’ve always been, right? Safe and sound and alone and thankful that you did the _right_ thing.”

The anger settles in her like ash, and she glares at him. “I see what you’re doing, Clay. I get it.”

“Do you? Well, thank fucking God.” He leans forward, until he’s almost nose-to-nose with her, and she steels herself and refuses to give way. “You feel that?” he asks in a low growl. “You feel that heavy stone in your gut when you think of him with someone else? Get used to it. Because you don’t get your shit together, and that’s how you’re going to feel all the time.”

She breaks then. She shoves him away and she snarls, “Get the fuck off me! You don’t get it at all!”

“I don’t have to get it,” he says. “I just have to get _you_ , and I do get you. I get you because you’re a hell of a lot like me. And I got my head out of my ass just in time to keep Sarah before she married someone else. Life doesn’t wait around, Olivia. It passes you right on by if you just sit down and wallow.”

She glares angrily at him, but he doesn’t look away, and she doesn’t get up and storm off, although she really wants to. Because there’s another feeling inside of her too, and it’s keeping her rooted to the spot.

“It’s okay,” Clay says then, his voice gentle again. “To want him. Christ, Liv.”

And her breath comes out in a rush, and she feels it then. The wanting. How much she _wants_ Elliot. In all the big ways and all the small ways. In a fast rush of passion and a slow marathon of years.

It makes her eyes wet.

“Shit,” she swears, and her voice breaks a bit and she puts her hand over her eyes to hide her face from him.

Clay’s hand settles on her shoulder and then runs up to her neck, his thumb rubbing through the wispy hairs on her nape. “You gotta do what’s right for you, Liv,” he says, quietly. “If that’s really letting him go, then you gotta know what that really is. I don’t want you regretting everything in five years, when he’s with someone else and all this confusion has calmed down. It’d be too hard.”

She takes a long, shaky breath and she hears footsteps in gravel, and then Roland asking if everything is okay. Clay tells him to give them a minute and asks if he can get their coats and helmets and meet them by the bikes, and the footsteps fade again.

The wetness in her eyes still burns, but the ache in her chest is hotter. It is overwhelming and it is almost breathtaking in its strength. It is anger and desperation and longing, and it is fear. It is fear that she will lose everything. It is the belief that she deserves nothing—certainly not a life with Elliot—and that what she does have of him is all she has the right to ask. It is the hatred of that feeling inside of herself.

It is how much she really does want him. How much she wants to try and the guilt that comes along with that.

“You only live one life,” Clay says quietly. “Shit, Olivia. Don’t waste that. When it’s all over and you’re on your deathbed, will you look back and regret it? Or will you take comfort in the fact that you walked away, because you were too afraid to take a risk?”

She can feel it then, the fork in the road. And she can feel too, that it is the last one she will get. She had thought her road had no chances, no alternate paths, and so she’d tread it with strength and determination and the willingness to sacrifice. But somewhere along the way all of that turned into fear and a comfort with her loneliness that amazes her even now.

She bends over and puts her hands on her knees, her head spinning, and she tries to breathe, in and out, one breath after the other. Clay doesn’t touch her again, and she feels her heart beating, her lungs filling, her blood flowing.

Alive. She is alive. And she still has a chance if she’s willing to take the risk. If she’s willing to live for herself, for once, and let the rest of the world adjust to her, rather than the other way around.

After a moment, she stands back up and says, “You’re an asshole.” To him. Steadily.

He folds his arms across his chest and leans his shoulder against the wall. “So I’ve been told.”

“I’m serious,” she says, focusing on him with a piercing gaze. Or what she hopes is a piercing gaze.

He furrows his brow and meets her eyes and says, just as seriously, “So am I.”

She stares at him silently for a long moment, and he stares back.

And then she can’t help it. The corners of her mouth start to turn upwards, and he shakes his head and grins and he grabs her arm and pulls and says, “Time to go, Benson. We keep going on like this and I’ll either kiss you again or drive you to kill me.”

“I really do hate you,” she says, smiling, and he just shakes his head like she’s the most exasperating thing he’s ever seen.

“If it gets you off your ass and into Stabler’s bed so I don’t have to have this discussion one more _fucking_ time, I can live with that.”

She laughs then, and she feels completely undone. There is elation now, and she can’t even wrap her mind around it. How she’s gone from a moroseness that threatened her sanity to this strange excitement that she has a new road to forge, and maybe it will be okay.

Maybe it will be.

Maybe she had to have that 12 years with Elliot before this could happen. Maybe she was learning what marriage really was, what commitment was, what it meant to really love someone. Maybe he was learning too.

“I need to see him,” she says as they walk across the parking lot. “Tonight.”

Clay glances at her and says, “Okay. I’ll take you.”

And she wants to protest that no, it’s literally hours away, and she can’t do it. She has to see him _now_ , but her logic prevails. She nods, nervously, and he suddenly stops in the middle of the parking lot and turns to her.

“Liv,” he says, seriously, his fingers curled around her arm. “Look. I don’t want to dismiss the whole… complicated thing. I do get that. But you worked a shitty job, you got close, you fell in love, and you didn’t cheat. You came by that love _honestly_. No one can fault you for your feelings or your actions. Do you understand? Whatever other people think happened, you _know_ what did and didn’t. That has to be enough.”

She stares at him for a long moment, and she feels so strange. So… calm.

She nods.

They walk on, and she catches the helmet that Roland tosses her as they gear up for the road. All she wants is to get going now, get home.

Find Elliot.

Because she has a lot that she needs to say.

* * * * *

The ride home seems excruciatingly slow, even though they’re on a big highway and it’s going along at a good clip. She feels impatient to get into the city, as if she’s on a timer, and if she doesn’t get there in time, something bad will happen.

Ironically, now that she’s decided she needs to try, her mind tries to tell her he’s moved on. Logically she knows that it’s only been a week since they talked, and if he’s actually decided to start dating someone else in that time period, well, then he’s not the man she thought she knew anyway, but her heart doesn’t quite know how to keep it in perspective.

At the same time, she feels an inescapable terror. That this is a big step. A commitment. A different world than she’s known before.

She is glad for the helmet and the steady drone of the bike. She doesn’t have to talk or focus on anything but her own brain.

They reach Manhattan by early evening, and then Queens shortly after, and twilight is starting to show when Clay pulls up outside of Elliot’s flat.

She can see the lights on through Elliot’s window and his jeep is in the driveway. She climbs off the bike and hands Clay his helmet. He turns to strap it down to the seat behind him, and asks, “You want me to wait until you’re sure he’s home?”

“No,” she says. “He’s home. It’s okay.”

“Still,” Clay says. “Maybe you could wave from the door.”

She gives him a nervous smile. “I’m okay, Clay.”

He takes a breath and stares at her for a moment and then says, “Okay, okay. I’ll check my phone in ten minutes though, okay? If there’s no message begging me to come get you, I’ll assume it’s okay and you’re finding your own way home.”

She smiles at him. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

He flips the visor down on his helmet, and she grabs his arm before he can kick the bike into gear again. “Clay, really. Thanks.”

She can just barely see his eyes through the smoky visor in the growing darkness, but he nods and she hears a muffled, “See you on Monday, Benson.”

He drives away, and she watches him for a moment and then turns.

The nerves in her stomach flutter violently, and the desperation is still there, and she just wants this over with. Just wants to know what she’s dealing with. She walks quickly up the drive and climbs the wooden stairs to his door, and knocks.

She can hear his footfalls inside, and then the door opens, and Elliot is standing there, Eli in his arms, and he looks at her in surprise. “Liv?”

“Hey,” she says, glancing at Eli and feeling slightly panicked. There are no more people behind him though, in his apartment, and she says, “I have to talk to you.”

“Okay,” he says, and he sets Eli down and says, “Go watch TV while I talk to Olivia, okay?”

Eli stands there for a moment, giving her a shy look, and then he walks back toward the TV and she can hear cartoon voices.

“Look,” he says. “Fin called me about this afternoon, and I’m sorry. I had my phone turned off and I was helping Maureen move last night and then I’ve had Eli all afternoon, and I didn’t even have the radio on, so I hadn’t heard anything about the shooting, and I promise I would have called if—“

“I don’t care about that!” she blurts.

And he stops and stares at her, brow furrowed.

“I just…” she starts. She takes a deep breath. “I just want to… Can we just… see what happens? Okay? I mean, can we just be what we are and keep doing what we’re doing and… wherever that takes us, whatever happens between us, that’s okay. Okay?”

He keeps staring at her, lips parted, still as stone, and she asks again, a little scared now. “Okay?”

His eyes are shadowed with the light behind him, but she can feel how intensely he’s looking at her. She looks right back, willing herself to stand there and risk it. And he finally clears his throat and says, roughly, “Okay.”

The weight draining from her chest is immense.

“Jesus,” she whispers, relieved.

“You mean this?” he asks, softly. “You’re serious? You want to try?”

“I just…” she says, fighting that fear of commitment that is creeping up on her. “I just want to stop _not_ trying. If that makes sense?”

He nods slowly. “Okay.” Then he huffs out a laugh. “Christ, Liv, that’s all I’ve ever wanted. At least right now.”

And she leans back against the railing on his stairs and collapses in relief a little bit and rubs tiredly at her face. “I just had to dig through a lot of layers to get here. That’s all.”

“We both did,” he says. “It was hard. I get that. I really do.”

And she nods, feeling the emotional stress of the day catching up with her.

“Come on,” he says, stepping back and motioning her in.

She hesitates. “El, maybe I shouldn’t. I mean, you have Eli, and it’s been a long day. Maybe I should just call a cab. We can get together later in the week.”

“The hell with that,” he growls. “You show up here and tell me you want to try things out and you want me to just let you drive away?”

She glances behind him at Eli who is glancing back at her periodically with curiosity. “I just…”

“Liv,” he says, and in the hall lights she can clearly see the blue of his eyes. “Stop. Just let things happen, right?”

She swallows and holds his gaze. Finally, she says, “Right.”

He holds the door, and she walks in, and he says, “Just for a while, okay? I’ll call you a cab later.”

She nods, numbly, and he shuts the door behind her, and she can’t quite get her heart to stop pounding so fast.

Elliot calls from behind her and tells Eli that Olivia is here to visit them, and Eli smiles at her and leans back on the sofa silently. A beeping starts in the kitchen, and Elliot grabs her arm briefly as he walks past.

“Dinner’s done,” he says, quietly. “Watch some cartoons with him while I get it out.”

She takes a breath and walks over to sit next to Eli on the sofa. She feels connected to all of Elliot’s kids, although Eli and Kathleen have had the most profound effect on her life. She sees Eli occasionally and knows he remembers her, but it’s usually months between meetings.

He’s wearing light blue pajamas and she does the math and figures out he’s a little over three years old now. Out of all of Elliot’s kids, it is Eli’s birthday she’ll never forget.

“What are you watching?” she asks casually.

He glances at her and then glues his eyes back on the screen and says, “Dago.”

And she’s seen enough cartoons in the squad room and at homes they’ve investigated to know he’s trying to say ‘Diego’, and that it’s a popular cartoon for his age right now.

“Ahh,” she says. “I love this one.”

He smiles at her.

She feels him watching her for a while, and she smiles at him and watches his cartoons and gives him time to adjust, and like a switch is being thrown, he hops off the sofa and grabs a toy and brings it to her excitedly. He is talking in his rapid, truncated words, and she has no idea what he’s actually saying, but she reacts to his excitement and expresses wonder over his toy, and Eli smiles at her earnestly and leans on her legs and points at her and says, “Lib!”

She laughs, and when she looks up, Elliot is in the doorway smirking.

“Oh, what?” she demands, trying to stop smiling. “I never acted like I was immune to cute kids.”

“We’re having french fries,” Elliot says, ignoring her protest. “We had a big lunch. Come and eat.”

Eli runs toward the kitchen and yells back at her with something that sounds like “Libooahfenfry?”

She gives Elliot a confused look, and he translates. “Liv, do you want some french fries?”

She sighs, and gets up and follows him into the kitchen.

Eli kneels on a stool at the counter and twists his legs—and the stool—back and forth as he leans over the top and stares at the big plate of french fries. She takes a stool next to him, and Elliot opens the refrigerator. “You want something to drink?” he asks her.

He takes a bottle of beer out for himself, and she thinks about the same, but she’s still riding a roller-coaster of emotions and the thought of adding alcohol to the mix is a little scary. “Water?” she asks.

He takes a bottle of it out and hands it to her, and then takes a little bottle of chocolate milk out and pours some into a sippy cup for Eli. Eli grabs it immediately and takes a big drink, smacking his lips dramatically when he’s done.

Olivia smiles, amused. She reaches for a french fry, and Eli immediately screeches, bringing her up short.

“Hot!” he yells at her, brows furrowed.

She glances at Elliot again, and he grins at her. “Dad has to try them first, Olivia. Otherwise they might burn your mouth.”

She smirks at him, and he reaches over and grabs one and pops it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. She taps her fingers and waits.

He swallows and smacks his lips a few times and then looks at Eli and says, “Okay. You can eat.”

Eli gleefully reaches out and plucks a fry from the plate and takes a bite and then hums happily, and Olivia takes one too and watches Elliot.

He takes two saucers from the cupboard and puts them next to the plate of fries and then gets a bottle of ketchup from the door of the refrigerator and hands it to Olivia. She takes it and pours a puddle into one of the saucers.

When she pushes it closer to Eli though, he frowns at her and says, “Noooo!”

She lifts her eyebrows and asks, “You don’t like ketchup?”

Eli shakes his head vigorously. “No. It’s spicy.” With perfect pronunciation.

She can’t help the laugh she snorts, and Eli laughs with her. She looks at Elliot.

He rolls his eyes. “We’re going through a stage right now where all red foods are spicy and he’s convinced they’re all horrible.”

“Ahhh.” Olivia nods, grinning at him.

“You want some ranch, big boy?” Elliot asks Eli.

Eli nods with a mouthful of food, his tiny hand trying to hold it all in his mouth, and Elliot pours some ranch salad dressing onto the second saucer. Eli pulls the half-chewed fry out of his mouth and dips it in the dressing.

“Augh!” Elliot makes a dive as if to catch him, but is way too late. He gives up halfway to the plate and sighs and leans tiredly against the counter. He glances at Olivia. “I wouldn’t recommend the ranch at this time.”

She laughs again and lowers her forehead until it’s pressed into her palm, elbow on the counter, and then she can’t stop.

She thinks maybe it’s been years since she’s laughed like this, and it feels good.

* * * * *

She helps Elliot rinse the dishes as he tells Eli to go out and pick his movie for the night. Eli runs out into the living room, and Elliot looks at her.

“Stay,” he says. “He’ll be asleep by the time the movie is over and we can talk.”

She hesitates, not sure if she should be intruding on their time together like this, but she knows Elliot, and there’s no lack of earnestness in his face. “Okay,” she finally says. “For a little while.”

He gives her a faint smile and then asks, “Did you take a cab here?”

“No,” she answers, taking a plate from him and loading it into his dishwasher. “Clay dropped me off. We went riding today.”

“Oh,” he says, and he looks at her with an expression that’s half abashed, half worried.

She turns and leans back against the sink and watches him. “You don’t have to worry about Clay, El.”

“I know,” he says. “He’s your partner. It’s just… well, you can see why I’d wonder, right?” He motions between the two of them, and she sighs heavily. He holds his hands up. “I’ll get over it. I swear.”

She folds her arms loosely in front of her and says, “You know, he’s sort of the reason I came over tonight.” Elliot lifts an eyebrow, and she continues, “He’s been a good friend. He lets me rant about you and he calls me on my bullshit and he really… He simplified things for me. He made me see that maybe it wasn’t quite as hopelessly complicated as I thought it was.”

“So I owe all of this to him?” Elliot asks, dryly. He turns and leans his hip against the sink next to her. “Great.”

She smiles and looks down. “Not all of it, but… enough.”

She just looks at him then, and the smile fades a bit from his face, and he starts to lean toward her when Eli screeches from the living room, and Elliot stops.

“Saved by the bell,” Olivia says.

He sighs and gives her a dark look and they walk out to the living room to see what movie was chosen.

A few minutes later they’re on the sofa watching _Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer_ in July, and Elliot glances at her and says, “Sorry! He loves this movie.”

“No,” she insists, amused. “I haven’t seen this in like 10 or 15 years. I’m kind of enjoying it.”

He’s right though. By the time Rudolf gets to the Island of Misfit Toys, Eli is sprawled out over Elliot’s lap sleeping, and Elliot picks his son up and puts him on a fold-up bed open on the floor, pulling a sleeping bag over the top of him.

She turns the TV off and stands, and Elliot motions her into his bedroom. She walks in as he turns a nightlight on in the living room and then turns the main lights off and then follows her. He shuts his bedroom door until it gaps open a few inches and then looks at her. “I’ll call you a cab if you want, but you’d be doing me a favor by sticking around. I end up just watching TV for a few hours in here after he falls asleep.”

She glances around, and his bed is unmade, the sheets tangled, and it sends a warmth through her. “It’s a little soon…” she says, softly, feeling the nerves jumping up inside of her again.

“I know,” he says. “Trust me. I’m not going to try anything with Eli sleeping right outside. You know that.”

Despite the near miss in the kitchen, she does know that. She sighs and gives him a long-suffering look, and he smiles and turns the TV on and then throws the sheets of his bed up over the pillows so she can sit down.

He stretches out next to her and puts his hands behind his head, changing channels until he finds a James Bond movie. She looks down at him and he holds her gaze, calmly.

“What made you change your mind?” he asks softly.

She thinks about that, and then shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says, honestly. “I think I just… ran out of reasons to walk away. Clay told me if I didn’t want to be with you then I needed to let you go, and I just… couldn’t.”

Elliot looks at the TV, but she can see him thinking about it, and eventually he says, “Yeah.” He looks up at the ceiling above him. “Kathy used to ask me every once in a while to transfer out, you know.”

She actually didn’t know. She’s not surprised, but… “I didn’t know.”

He nods. “Oh yeah. Once in a while. But I just… couldn’t. I mean, I gave her every excuse in the book for why I had to be the one to do that job, but most of the time it came down to you, I think. And maybe she knew too. Eventually she stopped asking.”

Olivia watches him in the flickering lights of the TV, and then she leans down and unties her boots and toes them off onto the floor. She lies back next to him and then turns on her side. “You ever wonder if it’s just the job? Between us, I mean.”

He furrows his brow and presses his lips together. “Yeah,” he says. “Sometimes.” He turns his head to look at her. “But it doesn’t matter, Liv. It’s all part of us. And that particular part of us is never going to change. It doesn’t matter where we go or who we’re with, all those things we’ve seen together will be the same. And I don’t care if we end up hating each other, I’ll still be the only one who understands those things with you. Just like you’ll be the only one who understands those things with me.”

“I don’t want to end up hating you,” she says, slightly alarmed.

He shakes his head slightly. “We won’t. I couldn’t ever hate you.”

“We’ve seen it again and again in this job, El. The people closest to you have the most power to hurt you. And when that goes bad, it goes really bad.”

He looks at her for a moment, thinking. “We’ve fought before,” he says. “We’ve always come back to each other.”

“It only takes once,” she says. “We aren’t even technically together and we already had a fight.”

He’s silent, and she glances up, meeting his gaze. He watches her for a while and then he turns onto his side facing her and he says, “I was scared, Liv.” In a low voice. “There’s so much shit between us. So much baggage. If it had been too much for you and you’d have walked away… I wouldn’t have blamed you.”

She breathes slowly and keeps their gazes locked. “We have 12 years, El. I’ve had two months with Clay. Did you really think I could have just left you behind?”

He glances down and shrugs. “Like I said, I wouldn’t have blamed you.”

“Well, you blamed me enough to get mad,” she says, mordantly.

He smiles at that, and glances away. “Yeah. I guess so. Well, I wasn’t going to just go away without a fight.”

She looks at him for a while. “It’s not going to be perfect, you know. You know me. You know I’m bad at this. I’m not going to suddenly get better.”

He reaches out and rests a hand on her hip. “I know,” he says, quietly. “But it’s different with me. Twelve years, remember? You can’t scare me away with a little talk about rape. I know it’ll be hard. I don’t care.”

She looks at him, and he’s so close. She can feel his warmth and the flickering light of the TV casts his face in shadows. He’s looking at her in that intense way he has, like she’s the only person in the world, and in the darkened bedroom, with only his sleeping son in the immediate area, it feels a little like it’s true.

She can hear him breathing softly, and she can smell soap on him and something else. Something more Elliot, and it makes her mouth dry. “You’re taking an awful lot for granted,” she tells him. “All I said was that _if_ something happens between us, it’ll be okay. No promises.”

He holds her gaze for a long moment, and his blue eyes are almost black in the darkness. They glitter in a way that makes her shiver, and then he suddenly slides on top of her, his body pushing her over onto her back, his hips slipping between her legs and she instinctively curls her fingers into his shoulder blades and stares up at him, breath caught.

His heat soaks through her and she can’t look away from him as he breathes against her mouth, and he says in a low rasp, “Oh, something _is_ going to happen, Olivia. You’d better believe it. You can’t come in here and tell me something like that and think I’m going to just stand back and wait passively.”

She can feel her heart beating against her chest, it’s so strong. She looks into his eyes and he’s not teasing. He lowers his head toward her, that dangerous furrow between his brows. He kisses her lightly, his mouth working hers open and then there is wet warmth and the silky slide of tongue and then he lifts his mouth when she tries to get him deeper.

She inhales sharply and looks up at him and her own voice sounds like sandpaper when she says, “But not tonight.”

She can feel him breathing, his weight pressing into her as he inhales. “No,” he agrees. “Not tonight.”

He doesn’t move though. She swallows and slides her hands down over his ribs to his waist, and he bows his head close to hers for a few long, silent moments, and her whole body aches. There are sparks everywhere, and she wants to arch up a little, right into him, because she feels tense, and all she wants is to know how he feels, moving against her, inside her.

She doesn’t even realize she’s pulling him down against her, her fingers digging into his lower back, until he says, “Olivia,” in a pained voice, and then exhales with a long, shaky breath. It is a tickling warmth against her neck, and she almost shivers.

She lets him go and he slowly slides off of her. She feels instantly cold and empty, but he doesn’t go far. He keeps a hand resting on the flat of her stomach, and every nerve in her body feels the heat there.

“If Eli wasn’t here…” he says, and he leaves it unfinished, but she hears the tone there anyway. Almost a warning. And that’s so Elliot that she has to shut her eyes. Because it’s not as if she wasn’t ever aware of his blatant sexuality over the years. She’s even been the target of it, in a mild way, from time to time.

But his intensity is overwhelming in a way that she has to get used to.

She feels a little anchorless.

“I know,” she says, quietly. “But he is.”

Elliot watches her for a moment, and then nods and seems to relax a bit, and she exhales and feels the excitement of the day finally catch up to her.

The TV is on low, and she can hear the steady hum of the air conditioner and Elliot’s heat beside her is soothing. She could sleep, she thinks. She could sleep for days…

Next to her, Elliot’s breath becomes slow and steady and deep, and she doesn’t even realize she’s fallen asleep until she starts to dream.

* * * * *


	14. Induction

* * * * * *

When he wakes, there’s an infomercial on the TV and Olivia is breathing deeply against his neck. He lies there for a moment, feeling a little salacious in her warmth and the intimacy of it all.

He wants to put his arms around her and press himself against her until she’s all around him too, and Jesus… it’s been a long time since he’s felt like this. Since he’s felt this kind of expectation and borderline obsession. Since he’s felt the newness of a relationship like this.

It’s a little odd, because Olivia isn’t new. Hell, his love for her isn’t even new. But he’s never had a clear path like this. And he’s never had her looking right back at him.

He shifts, finally, as his knee twinges with painful stiffness. Olivia barely moves. She is on her side, facing him, and her breath continues in that slow, steady way. He watches her for a while.

He can’t quite get his mind around the fact that she showed up at his door tonight and told him she was willing to try. Or, at least, the equivalent. He knows this won’t be a typical relationship. That is not Olivia. Not him either, really, although she wouldn’t know that from what she’s seen of his marriage.

He has to trust that they’ll find their way. He has to trust that she wants to be with him.

And maybe that’s what throws him a bit. Because he has never known any woman like Olivia, and it’s taken him 12 years to figure out how to deal with her. And he still makes mistakes.

Olivia can shut down parts of herself that he can’t. And he’s always been a little in love with her. She’s always been that exciting part of his life that he can’t let go. He isn’t lacking in self-confidence, and they have always been equals, but he’s alternated, through the years, between feeling like he has her in his hands, and like he will never be enough for her.

He still fears that. She’s the only one who can make him feel that kind of fear. Well, her and his kids. And she might still walk away.

But she’s tied to him in the same way he’s tied to her, and over the years he’s come to believe. It’s fate.

Unbreakable.

He tucks one elbow under his head and then slides his palm onto her hip and shakes her slightly. She inhales and jerks awake and blinks sleepily at him, focusing.

“Hey,” he says, quietly, and the sleep is still heavy in his voice as well.

“Hey,” she says, and he doesn’t see any panic in her eyes. It settles him.

“You’re still here,” he says, teasing slightly.

One corner of her mouth turns up, but only a bit. “You still think I’m going to run,” she says softly.

“I was worried,” he admits.

“I’ll never live down Oregon, will I?” She’s not angry. Her tone is more wistful, and he wonders if she regrets all of it. She does, he thinks. They both do. Although he’s not sure how else it could have gone down at the time.

“It was different then,” he says. Her eyes are black in the darkness, and he’s always found them captivating in a strange way. “We’re not the same.”

“It helped,” she says, absently, looking a thousand miles away from him. “And yet it didn’t.”

“Maybe we needed it,” he says. “Maybe all of that needed to happen to get us where we are tonight.”

Her eyes shift down and connect with his, and she smiles faintly. “Are you still on that whole idea about fate?”

He smiles back. “Why not?” he asks. “God works in mysterious ways.”

She frowns slightly. “If you believe in God.”

“Well, life then. Life works in mysterious ways.” He isn’t completely sure what sort of faith Olivia has, and he thinks that she probably isn’t sure of her own beliefs either. It’s an ever-changing battle for her, and while he loves the idea of saving her, of having her sit beside him church, he doesn’t need it.

Maybe his own faith has taken a few hits over the years.

She frowns again. “I don’t want to think about my mother’s rape being predestined, Elliot.”

“Maybe it wasn’t,” he says, and he’s often amazed at the directions their conversations take. “Maybe that was just a random act and it was your fate that life directed.”

She studies him and then huffs out a laugh and turns over onto her back, stretching. “You do know how to talk a good game, El. I’ll give you that.”

He watches the curve of her body as she reaches up and arches her back, and he has to consciously resist reaching for her. _Not the time,_ he thinks.

“Maybe you had to go through what you went through so you could save the world. Maybe I had to get married and have kids and get anchored so I wouldn’t grow up into a criminal. Maybe we had to meet 12 years ago, because if we’d met sooner, everything would have fallen apart.”

She looks at him then. “What do you think would have happened if we’d met sooner?”

He shrugs and shifts, jolting the mattress. “I think we’d have gravitated toward each other the way we did twelve years ago. We couldn’t have stayed away. And we’d have probably crushed each other.”

Her gaze slides slowly over his face, over his mouth, and then back to his eyes, and she makes a soft, pensive sound.

“We met at the right time,” he says. “When we were supposed to.”

Her brow furrows. “And what about Kathy? Was this all a part of life’s plan for her too?”

He takes a long breath. “Kathy has her own plans, Liv.” He thinks about it and then props himself up on his elbow, leaning toward her. “In fact, maybe this whole thing is really her deal. Maybe this entire thing between us is just fate’s way of getting me out of the way so she can have her epic story.”

Olivia stares at him, and then her mouth curves upward in amusement. “Oh God,” she says. “You’ve lost it.”

He leans further, and when she doesn’t back away, he crawls half on top of her, smiling at the way she gasps, just that little bit, and how her scent makes him feel light-headed. “Maybe we’re just incidental,” he says.

She puts her hand on his neck, her thumb rubbing over the rough stubble on his jaw, and he closes his eyes for a moment, reveling in it.

“I should go,” she says, in almost a whisper.

He looks down at her for a moment and then exhales. “I’ll call you a cab,” he says, and he slips slowly off of her and grabs his cell phone from the nightstand. He walks quietly into the living room and glances at Eli, and his son is sleeping deeply, so he calls from his kitchen and the dispatcher says a cab will be there in half an hour.

When he walks back into the bedroom, Olivia is sitting upright in bed, staring wide-eyed at his TV.

“What’s wrong?” he demands, quickly walking forward so he can see the screen.

She glances at him but doesn’t say anything, just waits for him to see for himself.

She has the late local news on and he can hear the anchor talking over a clip of the city streets at night. There are a few women leaning against the brick walls of storefronts, and he instantly recognizes the prostitution angle. But it’s the banner at the bottom of the screen that says _“Police search for serial killer on Brooklyn streets”_ that makes his stomach plummet.

He turns and looks at Olivia. “What happened?”

She shrugs and looks bewildered. “I don’t know! It wasn’t supposed to be released to the press. Someone must have leaked it!”

Her cell phone starts chirping as if on cue, and she answers without even looking at it. He listens half to her conversation and half to the news anchor on TV.

“… news team has learned that a possible serial killer may be responsible for the deaths of several female prostitutes over the past few months…”

He knows this has just made Olivia’s job about a hundred times more difficult, and he sits down on the bed as she stands and starts to pace.

“I don’t know!” she says into her phone. “I haven’t talked to anyone about it!” She glances at him. “Well, nobody I don’t trust anyway.”

Jesus. She doesn’t think he’d leak it, does she? He’d never jeopardize her job that way.

“What about you?” she asks into the phone, and she bites her lip as she listens. “Okay. We’ll have to figure this out tomorrow. There are more people involved in this case than the two of us, Clay. Have you talked to the captain yet?” She listens again. “Shit. Yeah, okay. I’ll be there. I’m heading home now.”

She hangs up, and he watches as she checks her messages and then sinks down beside him on the bed. “Shit,” she swears softly. “I’m not looking forward to this.”

“Let me know if you need help,” he says, because he isn’t sure what else to say. She’ll handle it.

She glances at him then. “Thanks.”

He nods slowly, chewing at his lower lip, and then he says, “Liv,” quietly, and she meets his gaze. He holds it steadily. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t talk about your case to anybody else.”

Her brows furrow slightly, and she swallows, and she says, “I know.” Her fingers curl around his wrist where it lies against his thigh. “I know, El. I don’t believe for a minute that you were the leak.”

“I didn’t even talk to Fin or Munch about it. It was something I was keeping between the two of us.”

She squeezes his wrist. “I believe you.”

He exhales slowly, maybe in relief. He didn’t expect her to disbelieve him, but maybe he had to know. If the trust was still there.

“Cab should be here in a few,” he says then.

She pulls her boots on and laces them up, and he walks her out to the door. They step outside onto the top deck of the steps and wait in the summer night for her cab.

“I know you’ll be busy,” he says, already feeling worried about her. “But try to give me a call, okay? Let me know how things are going.”

She nods. “I’ll try.”

The cab pulls up against the curb then, and she casts him a strained smile before starting down the stairs. He grabs the sleeve of her jacket, stopping her, and when she looks back, he takes a step down to her and then presses his mouth, hard, against hers for one long moment. “Be careful,” he says.

“I will,” she murmurs. “You too.”

He smiles and then watches her bound down the stairs and jog out to the cab in the darkness. Even as the cab pulls away, he stands outside and watches the lights of the neighborhood. He can hear the distant sound of wheels on the highway, always busy, no matter the time of night or day.

It’s still a lonely sound, but less so than yesterday. Because today Olivia showed up at his door and said she wanted to try.

Today, she came home.

* * * * * *

She doesn’t really sleep much that night. She manages to doze off on the sofa for maybe an hour before dawn, but then she’s up and showering and getting dressed and driving in to meet Clay early, before the brass gets there.

On a Sunday. Christ.

It’s an odd feeling too because she’s half distracted by the thought of Elliot in the back of her mind. It had felt good, waking up like that next to him, even in the middle of the night. Maybe especially in the middle of the night, which is when her mind tends to wake up and start turning over all the things that went wrong during the day.

They’ve always been the job to each other in a way that’s comforting. Sympathetic. And even if she’s still worried a little bit that it’s the job—and maybe only the job—that’s created this closeness between them, she’s starting to realize that their partnership goes a long way.

A thousand miles maybe. Because they are both about the job more than most, and it will never _not_ be a part of them. Maybe that’s always been the key to them both. The job.

Maybe.

When she gets into the precinct most of the offices are still dark and it’s quiet. She puts her jacket on her chair and sits down with a sigh, feeling the lack of sleep settling behind her eyes. It’s going to be a long day. She has no illusions about that.

Clay walks in a few minutes later and sets a huge cup of coffee down in front of her, and she gives him a look that says she loves him madly.

He smiles crookedly, but there’s tension in his jaw and wariness behind his eyes. “This is going to be a shitty day,” he says.

She sips the hot coffee and it’s delicious and startling. “Will Jackson get our back?” she asks. She likes her temporary captain, but hasn’t spent nearly enough time with her to know if she’s trustworthy.

“Yeah,” Clay says, and there’s some relief there. “She’ll have our back. But she’ll want to know where the leak came from, and she’ll hold us responsible.”

Olivia sighs. “I’ve been thinking about that all night, and I just… can’t remember anything specific.”

“Yeah,” Clay says, but his eyes flicker away from her.

“Clay,” she says, hesitantly. “What?” she demands.

He looks at her. “You talk about the case with Elliot?”

She stares at him, feeling her heart thudding rapidly in her chest. “Yes,” she finally answers, forcing her voice to stay calm. “But he isn’t the leak. He hasn’t talked about it to anyone else.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know him. He’d never do something like that.”

Clay furrows his brow and runs his thumbnail along the edge of his cup. “Yeah, I thought I knew my partner too…”

Her defensiveness is rising rapidly. “It wasn’t Elliot,” she says through slightly clenched teeth. “I trust him, Clay. He knows how this game works. If he’d even mentioned it to anyone else, he’d have told me.”

He looks at her and doesn’t say anything, and she can see him wavering.

“You don’t have to trust him,” she says. “But you trust me, right? And I trust him.”

He pauses but then he nods slowly. “Okay,” he says.

“You know,” she says, tentatively. “We might as well get this all over with right now.”

He looks up at her from under lowered lashes, and his gaze is intense. “You want to ask about Roland? Ask.”

“We talked to him only hours before this whole thing exploded.”

“I know.”

“If he’s holding a grudge against the department…”

Clay’s head snaps up. “He’s not holding a grudge against _me_ , Olivia, and that’s who he’d be hurting with a stunt like this. He knows that.”

“I’m just saying…” she starts, and then she stops, because what she’s really saying is that Roland has been in trouble before, and maybe they need to look at him, and she isn’t sure how to phrase that to Clay.

“I know what you’re saying,” Clay says sharply.

“Did you ask him?” She leans forward so she can keep her voice low.

Clay stares down at his desk and shifts in his chair. “Yeah. He promises it wasn’t him.” He looks up. “He’d have had to almost call right from the diner, Liv. It broke on the evening news and we’d barely had time to get home by then.”

The timing is incredibly close, he’s right, and she’s willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Yes,” she agrees.

“There are other cops who know about this,” he points out. “And the girls themselves. A lot of them are angry that there’s been no news coverage. It makes them feel like nobody cares.”

“Yeah,” she agrees again, quietly. “I know.”

“They don’t seem to have a lot of details,” Clay says. “I don’t think it was anyone close to us.”

She’s willing to go along with that, and she nods and then leans back in her chair and sips her coffee. “Okay,” she says. “So, let’s talk to Jackson and decide what to do next.”

They don’t have to wait long. The captain arrives soon after them and ushers them right into her office first thing. She’s hard about it at first, and Olivia understands that she needs to know if one of them leaked it. And the only way to get to that is by being cold about it.

But in the end, they all agree it’s likely they won’t find out and it’s moot anyway. Now that the press is on it, the brass will be all over them. Hounding them for results, demanding information, diving for bits of credit.

By mid-morning there’s a sizable cluster of stars gathered in their small office, and she hasn’t talked to Clay in hours. Since he’s the original detective on the case, Jackson considers him the lead and he’s been holed up with the press officer for a while.

Although she’s called in to offer her view from time to time, it’s not consistent, and Jackson finally gives her the okay to get out of there.

“Come in an hour or two early on Monday,” the captain calls as she walks out. “I want Clay to brief you.”

Olivia waves and then she’s out and she can breathe again.

She goes out and drives the streets for a while before going home. It’s too early for Lucy to be out working, and from the amount of reporters Olivia sees on the streets in Lucy’s working area, she’s not sure there will be much business tonight anyway. Photographers have a way of repelling johns.

She parks on the street and watches for a while, but nothing much happens. When her cell chirps, she answers mid-yawn. Elliot laughs in her ear.

“You sound beat,” he says.

She smiles and glances down, a little off balance even though he isn’t there. “I feel beat.”

“How was it?”

“Exactly how you’d expect it to be. Lots of gold stars and chaos and warnings to solve the case. Lots of people looking for credit.”

“Yeah,” he says. “It never fails.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “We’ll work through it.”

“You got Crowder there with you?”

“Nah. He’s back at the precinct. They’ve got him all tied up and answering questions. I think he’ll be useless to me today.”

“Yeah?” She can hear the smile in his voice.

“You don’t have to be so happy about that, El,” she says, dryly, but she smiles.

He snorts. “It’s just hard to trust anyone else to watch your back, that’s all.”

“Uh huh.”

“They have you working?”

“I’m doing a little on my own, but no. Captain sent me home. I’m about to go, I just wanted to see what was happening on the streets.”

“Ah,” he says, and he pauses. And then, “I could come over, you know. Bring some food.”

And she feels her stomach do a slow flip that she should, by all rights, be too tired to feel. She thinks about sleeping beside him, his heat keeping her warm, and it makes her pulse jump. Jesus, she’d never get any sleep…

“You could,” she says, her throat dry. “But I think I’d be asleep before the first bite.”

“Nothing would have to happen,” he says, voice low. “I’d just… be there. Watch TV or something.”

“With no Eli,” she says, and it’s a little bit of a warning.

“No,” he says, and his voice is dangerous too, but in a completely different way that almost makes her shiver. “No Eli.”

She can’t stop the hitch in her breath, and the images in her mind are all of the night before. Elliot in a T-shirt, his biceps bulging, the flickering light of the TV sliding over his jaw. His lips.

She bites her lip. “I really need to sleep tonight, El. Tomorrow is going to be a long one, with plenty of spotlight to go around.”

He exhales slowly. “Then,” he says. “I really shouldn’t come over.” And she’s relieved and strangely regretful at the same time, that he’s so truthful about his intentions.

She smiles a bit. “Talk to you later this week?”

“Yes.”

She hangs up with a sigh, and an intense desire to call him back and tell him to meet her at her apartment right now. At the same time she feels almost relieved that she’s staved him off.

She doesn’t want to turn and run, but he makes her feel barely restrained. Like she’s being held back by a thread, and once that thread breaks… She’ll be swept away.

The lack of control scares her. It’s why she so rarely gets drunk.

Around 7 she finally sees Lucy loitering in an alley, a few other girls surrounding her. She gets out of the car and jogs over, watching for the press as she goes. They’ve been in and out all day, and she figures they’ll be all over the place later on. They won’t want to miss the late night certainty of red lights and working girls on the corner.

The girls greet her with exceedingly more warmth then they used to, although the wariness never goes away, and Olivia supposes it shouldn’t. If she weren’t hunting a killer, she’d have to be less understanding about their profession. It’s something they all understand.

“Wasn’t me,” Lucy says when Olivia asks her about the press. She points to a news van parked two blocks down. “You see what that’s doing to business? Forget it.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Olivia says. “It’s going to be crazy for a few days, and then it’ll die down again.”

“They’ll go right back to not caring about us,” another girl says.

Lucy lifts and eyebrow and smirks. “That’s right.”

“Just be careful,” Olivia warns them. “Don’t get in some guy’s car just because he says he’s a reporter. This guy will probably avoid the area for a while, but you never know.”

“Oh,” Lucy says, looking suddenly surprised. “I just remembered… I wrote down some plate numbers for you.” She digs in her pocket but comes up empty. “Think the note is in my other jeans. I’ll have to give it to you later.”

Olivia feels a thread of worry. “What was odd about these guys?”

Lucy shrugs. “You know, haven’t seen them around before. They’re all white guys with short brown hair. Kinda young. All the girls that went with them came back though.”

“Okay,” Olivia says. “Keep it up. Either me or Clay will come back tomorrow night and get the note, okay?”

Lucy looks at her and then makes a face. “Just you, Benson, okay? I don’t want that partner of yours around here.”

“What? Why?” She looks around at the girls. Clay has been working the case for a while, and she’s confused as to why they’ve suddenly turned against him.

“He was the one talking to Leila,” Lucy says.

Olivia remembers Leila’s name. The girl helping Clay. One of the first victims. She disappeared too. “He was,” Olivia confirms. “She was a victim of this guy. She was helping him with information, trying to catch him.”

Lucy looks warily at her and kicks a shoe against the pavement. “Yeah, he was always around here talking to her. And then she goes missing too?”

Olivia shakes her head. “What are you saying, Lucy?”

Lucy hesitates and then shrugs. “Nothing. I just…” She glances at another girl. “Tell her.”

Olivia looks at the other girl, whose name she thinks is Debra, and the girl chews her lip for a bit and then says, “Clay’s partner was one of those bad cops from a few years ago. If we didn’t want to be arrested, we had to put out for them.”

Olivia nods. “Yeah, that was him. But Clay wasn’t involved.” She’s starting to feel a cold dread in her gut.

“No,” the girl says, confirming. She sighs. “But Leila was the girl his partner always came for. She’s the one who testified and put him away.”

Olivia stares at her, speechlessly. There are inferences there that she can barely comprehend.

“After he went away, Clay kept coming around, talking to Leila,” Lucy continues. “We didn’t like it, because partners are close, you know? You kick one the other kicks back, but Leila said it was okay so it was like, whatever. But then that bad shit happened to her, and she disappeared.” Lucy shakes her head and shrugs again. “I don’t know, Benson. I just don’t want him around.”

Olivia feels broadsided. What the hell? Clay hadn’t mentioned his connection to Leila when they’d talked about her, nor was it in the report. It wouldn’t necessarily be relevant to the report with this case, but it was still…

“Are you sure?” she asks quietly.

The girl nods vigorously, and Lucy eyes her with wariness. “Maybe he’s a good guy. I don’t know. But I don’t think I want to take the chance right now, you know? I think maybe we just wanna deal with you.”

“Okay,” Olivia says, and she feels numb.

She keeps feeling it even as she walks back to the car and climbs in. She isn’t sure what to do. She stares out the window for a while and then finally she texts Clay and asks him where he is. When he answers that he’s at home, she turns the car on and drives.

* * * * *

“What are you talking about?” Clay demands when she’s leaning against his kitchen counter and the question is out on the floor.

“I’m talking about you,” she says, sharply. “And Roland. And Leila.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that shit, Olivia. You know that!”

“I know what you told me about it, but those girls have a different view. And you never told me that Leila was the girl that Roland harassed!”

“I…” He stares at her with desperate eyes. “I didn’t think it was relevant!”

“You were partners!” Olivia says. “Of course it was relevant!”

“By the time I started working this case, that scandal was long over. I knew Leila better than the rest because…” He pauses, and she can see the tightness in his jaw. “Because I went to see her after Roland’s trial.”

“Why?”

“Because I felt bad. I felt like I should have seen it coming, and I felt betrayed. I wanted to hear the whole story. I wanted to ask her questions so I’d know what happened.”

Olivia studies him, and she wants to believe him. She wants him to be the guy she’s always thought he was. “Clay, Jesus… Did you say anything to her that could have been construed as threatening?”

“No!” he insists. “Never. I apologized to her. I told her I was sorry I didn’t see Roland slipping like that. I told her I wanted to help her. To make up for things. You know?”

Olivia holds his gaze steadily, and his vivid blue eyes cut into her. “I want to believe you,” she says.

“Then believe me,” he says. “What do they think happened? They think I killed her?”

“They didn’t say that.”

Clay stares at her. “They think I killed all those girls?”

“They didn’t say that!” Olivia repeats. “I didn’t say that either.”

He leans back against the wall and rubs tiredly at the space between his eyes. Then he looks up at her. “Look,” he says, more calmly now. “I tried to talk to all of them when I was first assigned the case. Most of them wouldn’t talk to me. Some of them knew me as Roland’s partner. Some didn’t. The ones that didn’t learned through word of mouth. Leila was the only one who would talk to me, and I was trying to help her out. I took her to shelters, got her to go to a few 12-step meetings. She was _trying_.” He swallows and drops his hands to his sides. “And then she was killed.”

He’s genuine. She can feel it. Of course… he probably thought Roland was being genuine too, when everything first went down in the sex scandal. “Okay,” she says, holding her hands up, placating. “Okay.” She wants everything to calm down a bit.

He watches her with hurt eyes. “You think I was involved somehow?”

“If I thought that I wouldn’t be here alone,” she says, quietly. “I just… You didn’t tell me everything, Clay. You realize how that looks? With all the connections between you and Roland and Leila?”

He exhales slowly and closes his eyes briefly. “Yeah,” he finally says, softly. “Okay. I’m sorry, Liv.” He looks at her. “It was just hard, you know? When I found out about Roland. It was hard to accept. I… Just think about it. I’ve heard a lot of shit about you and Stabler since you started working with me, and I know he’s had his problems. If he went too far one day and he hurt someone and then he went to prison. Could you just walk away from him?”

She bristles a little at the comparison, but it’s fair. It’s fair. Elliot has had his problems, and they aren’t benign issues. If he’d been a little different, gone just slightly off the path, had different luck, he could have hurt someone badly. He could have lost his badge and gone away. And rightfully so.

But would that have been enough to make her write him off?

“No,” she answers honestly. “I couldn’t.”

Clay relaxes a bit against the wall, just looking at her. “I couldn’t walk away from Roland either. He deserved what he got, but I have to believe that wasn’t all him. I have to believe he can be saved.”

She nods.

“I went to Leila so I could understand,” he continues. “And then I wanted to help her, and then when all this stuff started up, she was the one I connected with for information. She was the only one who trusted me. I understand that the rest can’t be so forgiving. That’s why we brought you in. But Liv…” He holds her gaze. “You gotta trust me.”

“I do,” she says, and she means it. Deep down she still feels a little fooled, a little misled, but she does believe him. She knows from experience that people can be two separate entities, wildly different. Killer and saint. Liar and innocent. But her instinct says Clay is earnest.

She and Elliot have had their problems. Things they didn’t tell each other. Secrets they kept. And as betrayed as she’s felt from time to time, and she’s sure he’s felt the same way, they’ve always worked it out. Always kept each other straight. She can extend the same benefit of the doubt to Clay.

“Olivia,” he says softly, drawing her attention. “If I’d known it was going to look like this, I’d have told you right off.”

She nods and says okay, and he moves forward and touches her arm, and she smiles faintly and hates the way they’re suddenly skittish around each other. She wants the old Clay back. The one that teased her with confidence and seemed so unbreakable.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says. “I really just need to get some sleep.”

“Okay,” he says, and when she tries to move away his hand holds her for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he says again when she glances back.

She nods, and then smiles when he moves in and hugs her briefly. It feels good. Reassuring. And she buries her nose quickly in his shoulder and then steps back. He releases her immediately.

“No more secrets,” he says, quietly. “You can ask me anything, Liv.”

She just nods and then heads for his door, and when she looks back, he’s watching her go with a sorrowful expression. The ring around his neck clutched in his fist.

* * * * *

The week passes slowly, despite the chaos.

The press drops off a bit because news in New York City is always happening, and these cases are slow movers. The brass doesn’t though. Like all management, once they’ve been poked awake, they stay awake and they want morning to come right fucking _now_.

There’s talk of yanking her and Clay off the case and replacing them with someone more… experienced. Which translates to someone more well-known. And better connected.

But in the end, they get to stay, because it is just a handful of prostitutes after all, and with the lack of leads the solvability is low. The potential for credit is equal to or less than the potential for failure.

She and Clay walk in on Monday morning and ride up in the elevator together. She feels a little awkward, and she’s not sure how it’s going to go, and he finally looks at her and asks, “We good?”

“Yeah,” she says, and then they drop it.

But it’s a quiet week too, because though they try to fall back into the teasing tone of their temporary partnership, it still feels wounded.

 _It’ll come back_ , she reasons, and without all the banter they focus more on the case anyway.

She goes back out and gets the list of plate numbers from Lucy. Clay waits in the car. They run them all down, and the guys all seem mostly typical. They make files though, just in case.

It’s more frustration. She keeps circling this case again and again, trying to find a place where she can get her fingernails under the lid and pop it off, but it isn’t happening. It’s going to be solved by luck, and that makes her feel helpless.

“It’s been a while,” Clay says one night. “With all the press this guy might have moved on.”

“He didn’t move on,” Olivia says, absently. “The posing is about us. He wants us to know he’s smarter than we are.”

“If he can’t complete his ritual, he’ll move on to somewhere he can. That’s more important than mocking us.”

She tilts her head, shrugging in agreement. “If that’s the case, we’ll never get him.”

He nods with a sigh.

But they should have known better.

On Friday the early August air gets suddenly cool and a storm front moves in. It rains all day and shows no signs of letting up. In the afternoon, Elliot texts her and asks if she wants to meet at their usual watering hole. She muses over the fact that he texted rather than called, as if attempting to keep it casual, and then grants that it does make her feel less panicked.

 _Okay_ , she texts back. _Meet at 10._

It’s not a date exactly, but it’s not really… casual either. It can’t be. Not with everything that’s been happening. It makes the nerves in her belly spark a bit, but not all of them are in a bad way. She wants to see him.

The rain puts a damper on the evening and drives people into the clubs and into cabs and everyone else walks with purpose on their way.

She and Clay split up for the night. He goes out to talk to a few second shift officers from the traffic department, and she stays in the office and checks out more plate numbers.

The department empties out by 8, and she’s leaning back in her chair and watching the rain run down the window in the darkening twilight.

Her cell beeps soon after, and when she answers, Clay is there, and something in his voice sends dread through her veins.

“Olivia. You need to come down here. The alley between Red Letter News and Java Jay’s.”

“What’s wrong?”

He pauses, and she can hear people behind him, sirens. “He got another one.”

Shit. _Shit._

“I’ll be there in a few.”

“Liv,” Clay says again, and again she feels that sense of dread at the calmness of his tone. It sounds false to her. Like he’s putting on an act for her. And that scares her. “I sent a squad to pick you up. Don’t drive.”

“Clay,” she says, because he’s confusing her and she doesn’t like that. It’s making her anxious.

“Just get here,” he states. And then he hangs up on her.

She swallows her anxiety and her expectations and she grabs her rain jacket from her locker and takes the stairs down to the bottom floor. There’s a squad car already waiting in the unloading zone, and she when she leans down to glance in the window, the uniform motions at her to get in.

She asks, but the guy doesn’t know anything except he was sent to get her, and so she watches the city lights as they blur in the rain, watches the people behind the windows of the restaurants, smiling and talking, dry and warm in the soft lights.

There are already three cars at the scene, blocking the alley from both ends. The coffee shop on one side is already closed, the adult bookstore on the other is being watched by uniforms.

She steps out of the car and the rain immediately feels cold against her scalp and neck. She flips her hood up and walks through the police line, flashing her badge. Clay walks up to meet her, from a circle of EMS workers, and she feels a sudden hope. Maybe the girl is alive. Maybe this one escaped like last time.

“Olivia,” Clay says, approaching with a grim expression.

“Is she alive?” Olivia asks, hopefully. She starts forward.

“No,” Clays says. “She’s dead. The uniforms called EMS out of procedure.”

She keeps walking, and Clay says her name again. “Olivia.”

“Damn it,” she swears. “Please tell me he left something for us this time. Something we can use.”

“Olivia!” Clay’s voice is sharp, and it brings her up short. She turns to look at him, and the expression of regret in his eyes sends an alarming wave of cold fear through her.

“What?” she asks, voice hoarse, and she knows-- _knows_ \--that she doesn’t really want to know at all.

He swallows. “It’s Lucy,” he says, softly.

Her stomach gathers into a heavy ball of lead and she stares at him for a long moment, searching his face. He furrows his brows in sympathy.

There is a pressure behind her eyes then, and she grits her teeth, and then turns and walks purposefully toward where the body lies. Clay trails behind her.

 _No_ , she wants to say. No, because Clay could be mistaken. He’s not the one who talks to her nearly every night. He’s not the one Lucy trusts. He never talks to her, and he doesn’t see her. Not close up. But Olivia has been a cop long enough to know that kind of reasoning never pans out.

She reaches the circle of paramedics and they move back, making room for her, and then she sees the body, lying posed in the shape of a cross.

And it is Lucy.

With her dark hair and her long, elegant body and her dark eyes closed against the world. And there is an unnatural rigidity to her limbs and her jaw that makes Olivia want to cry.

“Shit,” she whispers, and then she goes down onto her heels and looks at Lucy, and she hadn’t even realized how much she was keeping in until it starts trying to get out.

It’s in her eyes, wet and salty, and she flips her hood back down because there’s no crying in baseball and sometimes her body just kind of goes on its own and all she can do is cover it up. The rain runs coldly down her face, and she takes a breath and pushes her hair back.

Damn it. Goddamn it.

She hears Clay talking to the EMS workers, and then they start packing up to leave, and the alley grows quieter but the street grows more noisy and she knows the press is arriving and the medical examiner and she has to pull it together and be a detective now.

“Liv.” Clay’s voice is quiet, worried, and his hand squeezes her shoulder.

“Yeah,” she says, and she hates the hitch in her voice. “Let’s do it.”

“I can do this myself. If you… If you need to…”

She pins him with a look, swallowing down a throat that already feels swollen. “Let’s do it,” she repeats.

He holds her gaze for a moment, and then he nods and they start examining the scene, and she takes notes and she tries to make her heart go numb.

* * * * *

She’s soaked through by the time they finish. The rain has likely washed most of the evidence away as well, although the medical examiner goes through the motions of bagging Lucy’s hands and preserving anything that might be there. A uniform stands over the body holding a wide umbrella.

Lucy lies in the middle of the alley, her head pointing due north, her feet south, her arms positioned out at perfect 90-degree angles. She has ligature marks around her neck, but the rain will postpone the knowledge of drowning.

Olivia leans against the alley wall and watches the examiner finishing up. In her pocket, her cell phone chirps, and she pulls it out, shielding it from the rain with her palm. It shows four missed calls, and when she changes screens it shows Elliot’s name.

She remembers suddenly that they had plans at 10 o’clock. When she glances at her watch, it’s nearly midnight.

 _I’m sorry._ She texts back. _Emergency on case._

Then she turns the ringer off and slips it back in her pocket.

“Hey,” the medical examiner suddenly says. “There’s something here.” He’s a tall, thin white man easily 10 years older than she is, and Olivia has seen him before but doesn’t know him personally.

She walks forward and hunkers down next to Lucy’s body and watches as the guy pushes his fingers between Lucy’s dead lips and then pulls something out of her mouth.

“What is that?” she asks, suddenly distracted from her numbness.

It’s white paper, and she thinks maybe it’s a candy wrapper at first.

He turns it over and then suddenly unfolds it, and she thinks, _did he leave us a note?_ And then she’s staring dumbly at her own name, and it’s her business card. It’s soggy and soft from the rain and saliva, but the fucker folded it up and inserted it into Lucy’s mouth.

“It’s the one I gave her,” Olivia says, hollowly, as he turns it over again and there is another number there written in pen. Her number from the desk in Brooklyn. Her cards have her cell phone number on them, and her Manhattan work number, so she’d written out her Brooklyn number for Lucy as a matter of course.

The examiner looks at her over the top of rain-speckled glasses. “I guess he wanted to send a message.”

She stares at the card and then at Lucy. “I guess so.”

The examiner bags the card, and Olivia initials it and hands it to Clay, and he looks at it for a long time and then at her. “This fucker is playing with us,” he says, angrily.

She nods. She’s angry too, but still invested in keeping herself numb. Lucy’s dead face is only a foot away from her and all she can feel is a gray haze of regret.

 _I’m sorry_ , she thinks as she looks at Lucy. _I let you down._

She has to back away then, as they lift Lucy into a body bag and put her in a bus, and then they take her away and both the press and the cops start dispersing, and she walks slowly around the scene. They don’t bother her, and she doesn’t talk to them. She doesn’t want to leave.

The rain has soaked through her jacket and her jeans and her exposed skin feels raw and cold, even though it’s summer. She doesn’t care because it feels good in a way. Deserved. Life-affirming.

When the alley is empty she goes to lean against the wall and ends up on her heels, staring at the spot where Lucy was laid out. She didn’t die in that spot, but she was offered up by the killer there. An obscene sacrifice to the cops who hunted him.

It’s another victim, another person who trusted her and then paid with their life, another woman she failed to protect. It hasn’t been a good year. She feels the weight of Mary Dunn settle on her shoulders, right on top of Lucy’s death, and her chest hurts. It feels tight and under pressure and she feels like she’s going crazy a little bit.

“Liv,” Clay says, and he’s hunched down next to her. She didn’t even hear him approach.

She doesn’t look at him. Their distance this week makes her feel guarded, and all she wants to do is sit here for a while and not talk.

“It’s time to go,” he says. “I know it’s hard, but you’re soaking wet and she’s gone now. There’s nothing you can do to change that.”

She grits her teeth, feeling annoyed. He’s not being patronizing, but his soft tone irritates.

He puts a hand on her shoulder, and she flinches.

He removes it. “You can’t stay here,” he says.

She ignores him.

He finally gets up and walks away, although she doesn’t think he’ll go far. The late-night silence finally permeates the alley then. The steady din of the pouring rain and the metallic tapping against the aluminum gutters hypnotizes her. She stares at the wet black pavement where Lucy laid and she says, “I’m so sorry,” in a bare whisper.

She doesn’t really know how much time passes, but she hears Clay again in a while, talking at the head of the alley, and then there are footsteps that approach and pause, and then approach again.

And then someone is squatting down next to her, and a voice says, “Liv.” And it’s Elliot’s low rasp.

She takes a long, deep breath and closes her eyes. She can smell him then: soap and laundry detergent and smoke, from the bar she supposes. Where she was supposed to meet him.

“Did Clay call you?” she asks. Her voice sounds dry and brittle.

“Yeah,” Elliot says. “He’s worried.”

She doesn’t say anything to that, and in the silence Elliot shifts and says, “What’s going on?”

“I let him get her,” she says, quietly, because if anyone is going to understand this, it’s Elliot.

“You didn’t let him,” he says. “He took her.”

The emotion bubbles up inside of her again, and it’s all anger and fear and sadness, and it’s overwhelming. Too overwhelming. She fights it back down into the numbness she needs. She shakes her head. “What good are we in this job if we can’t protect anyone?”

He’s silent for a moment and then his hand slides onto the back of her neck, and God, he’s warm. So warm. “I ask myself that everyday,” he says.

He gives her another few moments and then his hand tightens on her nape and he says, “Liv, you can’t stay out here. Come on. I’ll take you home.”

She doesn’t move for a moment. Her bones feel frozen in place, and her mind is cloudy and lost.

“Come on,” he says again, softly. “Don’t make me stay out here all night with you.”

And he would. So she lets him pull her to her feet and she walks with him to the mouth of the alley, and when they get to the street, she sees Clay standing by his Pathfinder, watching worriedly. He meets her gaze when she looks at him, and she gives him what she thinks is a reassuring smile, but maybe it’s weak. He exchanges a look with Elliot and then nods and climbs into his truck and drives away.

She climbs into Elliot’s jeep and he turns on the heater, even though it’s August, and then he drives, and she listens to the thrum of the engine and the sound of the tires on the wet street, and she leans back into her seat and stares out the window.

There are girls out on the street. Working. Living. Risking.

She wants to sweep them all out of their lives and into something better, but that’s impossible.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Elliot says after they’ve been driving for a while, and she knows that. She knows logically that she’s doing what she can and sometimes you can’t win.

“I know,” she says, swallowing down her anger. “I’m fine.”

He glances at her but doesn’t say anything, and she imagines that’s because he knows that it’s logical too, but he also knows she can’t help it.

At her place, he follows her up, and she goes into her bedroom to change out of her wet clothes. She puts track pants and an old sweatshirt on, but then she hesitates, not wanting to go back out there and talk about Lucy.

She sits on her bed and leans over her knees and rubs at her face tiredly, and when she looks up, Elliot is leaning in her doorway, a glass of bourbon in his hand. He holds it out to her and she looks at it and then shakes her head. She doesn’t want to feel that particular numbness. She doesn’t want to start, because she feels like she might not stop.

Elliot pulls it back and swallows the mouthful himself.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “About Lucy.”

She nods and doesn’t want to talk about it. She watches him, and he’s still in his work clothes. His suit jacket is gone, but the first few buttons of his navy blue shirt are undone and he must have shaved again after work because his jaw is smooth.

She is grieving, she knows, and angry that the killer has taken Lucy, even though they weren’t necessarily friends. She had felt responsible in some ways for Lucy and all the other girls. And they had a grudging respect for each other. They liked each other even. And they’d been finally working together. She’d finally felt like they were making a difference.

She can feel the breakdown coming, but she can’t get it out.

Elliot shifts and sighs, and she is suddenly acutely aware of his presence. Of how he breathes and smells and moves, and how much she wants to lose herself in him.

All she wants to do is feel alive. Be destructive. None of her thoughts make sense. And that too is familiar to her. There have been cases over the years where she’s felt like this, so affected and so aching and suddenly surprised by her fierce desire for Elliot.

She thinks maybe one of the reasons they would often avoid each other after bad cases was because they were both so close to losing it with each other. So overcome with the wave of wanting that would appear, to feel something else, something better, with someone who understood, that it had been dangerous to be together.

It’s still dangerous, but the consequences aren’t there anymore.

 _He should go_ , she thinks, _because I’m not being rational._ Sometimes she hates how she overanalyzes everything.

He sets his empty glass on her dresser, and she watches how his shirt stretches taut over the muscles in his arms. He leans back against the wall then and folds his arms over his chest and she can see that he’s worried, that he wants her to talk about it.

She wants to tell him to go, but her mouth won’t say the words.

“You’re not okay, Liv,” he says, brows furrowed.

And she knows, but she can’t help it. “I’ll _be_ okay,” she counters. _Eventually._

He holds her gaze and then he opens his mouth to reply, and she doesn’t want to talk anymore. She wants something else. She wants… to get this ball of pressure out of her. And she wants him. And she wants someone who won’t coddle her or act like she’s made of glass.

So she kisses him.

She stands up and walks right up to him and she puts her hands on his hips and presses her mouth against his. He inhales sharply and keeps his arms tightly folded as her breasts press against them, but he kisses her back almost immediately.

“I don’t want to talk,” she murmurs, and she slides her hand up, grabs the back of his neck, opens her mouth and slides her tongue into his.

His arms drop open and wrap around her waist, and he pushes back against her for a moment, moving his mouth with hers, kissing her as vigorously as she’s kissing him, but then he turns his head, breaking it off and he takes a breath, and he says, “Liv, Jesus…”

“Come on,” she urges him, slipping her fingers under the collar of his shirt and stepping up against him. “Eli isn’t here, and this would have happened anyway tonight, right?”

She presses her mouth up under his chin, forcing his head back a little. His fingers dig into her lower back. “Maybe,” he says, his voice a low rasp. “But that was before the witness you’ve so invested in was killed and your business card was stuffed in her mouth.”

She presses her temple against his cheek and grits her teeth. “We all cope differently, Elliot. You’ve never gone home after a hard day and just wanted to fuck it out?”

He has. She knows he has, because she knows him. Because she’s pretty sure if they’d gone out for drinks after those cases instead of going home, they’d have fucked it out right there in the parking lot and probably never stopped.

He leans back against the wall, away from her, but his arms are iron around her and pull her along with him. He lifts one hand and grabs her chin, his palm settling hotly against the skin of her throat. He makes her look at him. “I’m just worried about you,” he says, and she can see it in his eyes, battling against his desire. “I don’t think this is the time. I don’t think you need this right now.”

And she explodes on him.

“Don’t!” she snarls at him, jerking away. “Don’t you do that! I’m an adult. Don’t act like you know what’s best for me.”

He stares at her, unrattled, and she can see him turning things over in his mind.

“If you want to go, go,” she says. “But don’t treat me like I can’t handle the job or my own body.”

She pulls away from him and steps away and he growls, “That’s not what I’m doing.”

“Whatever,” she says, maybe a little sullenly. “I don’t want to talk about it and I don’t want to sit here while you tell me it’s not my fault.”

He holds her gaze with a glare and then he glances away and she sees the muscles in his jaw flex.

She starts to walk past him, heading toward the door and her living room and the entryway beyond, when he grabs her by the arm and pulls her around. She doesn’t have time to say or do anything before he’s turning her into the wall and pressing her back against it, and in the same motion putting his mouth back on hers and kissing her, hard.

“You want someone to fuck?” he asks breathlessly against her lips and between kisses. “Then it’s going to be me.”

And she feels a rush of arousal at that, at his heat and his strength and his coarseness. She grabs the back of his neck and opens her mouth and slides her tongue against his, and she starts grabbing at his shirt, pulling it up out of his pants so she can get her hands on his bare skin.

He makes a wordless sound and then leans down and grabs her around the backs of her thighs and picks her up, and for a moment he pins her back against the wall, his hips between her legs and his mouth all over hers.

And then he pulls her away and turns and they’re falling down to her bed, his weight on top of her, and he moves up, sliding a knee between her legs, looming over her as he leans down to keep their mouths together.

It’s exactly what she wants, and she gets as deep into his mouth as she can while she arches up into him, her hands sliding under his shirt, over his bare back, scraping her nails down. His mouth moves to her throat and he nips at her until she feels teeth. He sucks at her skin a little too hard, and his mouth is hot, wet.

He slides his hands up under her sweatshirt and she’s wearing nothing underneath. His hands find her breasts and he exhales hard.

“More,” she murmurs, as he lifts his head and looks at her. He kisses her, ending it with a groan, and then he roughly yanks her sweatshirt up until she feels the air-conditioned coolness against her breasts. His mouth closes warmly over one nipple, and it’s startling. Reassuring. Achingly good. It sends a current through her, ending right between her legs.

He’s still on all fours, leaning over her, and his back arches under her hands, and he feels like steel. She slides one hand down between his legs and against the bulge there, and he exhales hard against her breasts. He rears back and jerks his belt out of his belt loops, tossing it aside, and then rapidly unbuttons his shirt until he can wrench it off and drop it across their feet. He’s not wearing a T-shirt underneath, and as he settles back down on his side, leaning half over her, she slides her hand over his chest, around his side, down his back until her fingertips bury themselves under the waistband of his trousers. He’s warm there, like living heat.

Alive, she thinks.

His hand is slipping under the waistband of her track pants and his mouth is coming up from her breast to press against her lips again, and she can’t stop the moan as his fingers slide between her legs and into the slickness there.

He’s panting into her mouth.

She rubs against the outline of his cock through his pants and the pressure is building inside of her, and… it doesn’t… feel… right.

Instead of feeling the sparks of pleasure, she’s feeling hazy and too wired. She’s feeling flashes of anger and fear and sadness, and her stomach is churning.

It feels painful and desperate and her skin feels tight and restricted. She likes his warmth, but her face feels hot, her eyes gritty, and there is wetness on her face.

And then she realizes she is crying, and Lucy is there, and all the cases before her, and something has broken inside of her. Something big, because it’s pouring out and she can’t do anything. She’s paralyzed and out of control and all the emotions are draining away from her. All of them.

“Liv?” Elliot’s voice is low, affected, rough. Worried.

She’s dimly aware of him swearing softly and lifting up off of her, his hand pushing the hair back on her forehead so he can see her face. She doesn’t want to do anything except turn away from him and curl into a ball and hide the tears, and she doesn’t know what’s wrong with her.

“Shit,” he whispers, and it’s not angry. His hands are gone from her, and his breath is easier, and she manages to turn away, but he puts his arms around her, one hand up over the crown of her head as he pulls her back against him.

She cries then, silently, with no loud sobs, and he lies with her, his arms not allowing her to move as he holds her, and she surrenders to it. She goes limp and lets it out and lets him surround her with his warmth.

He doesn’t ask what’s wrong and he doesn’t talk to her, and as her body tires out, her mind follows. She feels foggy and surreal in her weariness, and his breath is steady and slow against her hair.

Eventually, she closes her eyes and the darkness takes her.

* * * * *

When she wakes, the blue haze of dawn is filling the room, and she can still hear the rain tapping steadily against the window. It doesn’t feel like any time has passed at all. She remembers Lucy and Elliot and the way her body ached like it just happened, but she feels better. Less tense.

She is on her back and Elliot is on his side next to her, his heavy arm lying across her belly. His breath is slow and deep as he sleeps. Some time in the night he’d put her under the sheets and pulled the blankets up around them. He is still shirtless, and he’s pressed up against her. She feels his bare legs and the cotton of his boxer briefs.

She takes a deep breath and stares at the ceiling.

He stayed with her. Which maybe isn’t so surprising. But she wasn’t herself last night, and she was sabotaging everything, and he met her head on. And then he stopped when she broke. He didn’t get angry and he didn’t force her to talk. He just held on and let her work it out.

She slept like a rock. God knows she needed it, but after Lucy’s scene she should have spent a horrible night, waking and dreaming until she was driven up to pace and fret. Maybe she was just too tired.

Maybe it was Elliot in her bed…

His breathing hitches, and she freezes, and she realizes she doesn’t want him to wake. She wants to lie right here for a while with him, and just be quiet and think and feel him breathing.

She’s always felt so alone, even when she was with other people. But she doesn’t feel alone with him.

It’s so unfamiliar. And it makes her uneasy. Like she’s building up expectations.

She wonders sometimes what his expectations are. She’s been with him long enough to figure out what his ‘type’ is, and she’s never thought it was her. Alternatively, he’s never really been her type either. If they’d met outside the job, would they have been as drawn together?

Her first instinct is to say no, but then she remembers their first year together. The way they clashed as much as they got along, how it built a bond between them. There have always been sparks. She thinks maybe they both opened their eyes a little more after meeting. They had the power right off the bat to drive the other crazy. In more ways than one.

She finally has to shift, and his breathing gets quiet, and his arm moves, and then she knows he’s awake because his thumb moves back and forth, deliberately, stroking a little spot on the curve of her bottom rib.

“You get a call?” he asks sleepily.

“No,” she says. She glances at the clock and it’s nearly 7. “They won’t have autopsy results until later this morning. I’ll go in then. I’m sure Clay is sleeping in too.”

He makes a rough noise of agreement, and this shouldn’t be familiar to her. This rough, sleepy version of him that appears only in the mornings, when he first wakes up. But it is. Too many nights in the crib, waking him up so she can take her turn sleeping, or finding him there after a late night of work, or a fight with Kathy.

It feels strange to think it might be hers now. Strange but good.

“You okay?” he asks then, and his voice has cleared a bit. To a soft tone.

She nods and her fingers find his forearm across her stomach. She smoothes down the dark hairs there and feels the thickness of his muscles, even at rest.

“Yeah,” she says. “I will be.”

He makes a satisfied sound, and she turns then, under his arm, and he lifts it up until she’s on her side facing him, and then he sets it down again, resting his palm on her hip. She looks into his eyes, and in the blue dawn they’re shadowed and sober.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “About last night.”

He stares at her. “Don’t apologize to me for that, Olivia. I know how hard this job is.”

“I thought I wanted one thing, and then I just…” She trails away, not sure what she wants to say, or how to say it.

His hand squeezes her hip. “You were reacting to a bad case. It was just complicated a bit because we’re so… new.”

New. She almost smiles at that. That they could be new to each other, even after 12 years. She wants to say more, about how she was sorry she led him on, but the words feel dry in her throat, and there’s a lot of weirdness in the whole idea, what with them being the sex police and all. She just lets it go. He knows, and she trusts that.

He puts his hand in her hair, strokes it back, cups the back of her head. “I wanted to make you feel better, whatever that was going to take.”

She exhales with an upward curve of her lips at that. “Twelve years and I still haven’t learned to deal with this job.”

He smiles faintly. “You’ve learned. It’s just that, like me, you don’t want to take a warm bath and talk about it all night.”

She lifts her brows at that. “How do you cope?”

His eyes glitter in the shadows and he moves up and leans over her in one fluid motion. “Oh, you got it right, Liv,” he says, softly, as his phone starts to vibrate on her nightstand. He brushes her lips with his. “Next time, when we’re not so new, we can _not_ talk all night.”

She kisses him back before he pulls away and answers his phone. He has a short, clipped conversation that she knows instinctively is with Cragen, and then he hangs up and glances at her. “Case?” she asks.

He nods. “Meeting Fin there.” His gaze drags over her in the morning light. “You okay, Liv?”

She nods. “The sleep helped a lot.” She pauses. “And you too.”

He leans over again and kisses her properly this time, and then he climbs out of bed and starts pulling on his now-dried clothes. She watches him openly, her gaze skimming over the bulge of muscle in his thighs and the flexing of his arms. He’s more solid than he was when they’d first started working together. Less lean. She’s watched him gain a decade to his age, and it’s only made her want him more.

So strange, this relationship thing. She feels now like she’s been in one forever. With him. And maybe she has, really.

He smirks a bit as he watches her watching him, and he buttons his shirt. “If you need anything, just call,” he says, and there’s an innuendo there that makes her flush. She’s glad of the rain and the still-cloudy sky that keep the room dim.

“I think it’s going to be a busy week,” she says, quietly.

And he pauses with a sober expression. “Let me know how it’s going, okay?”

She nods, and he turns to sit on the bed and put his shoes on. She resists the urge to put her hand in the furrow of his spine and run it slowly up his back.

When he’s done, he twists around, planting one elbow in the mattress, half-lying beside her again. “This is the key, you know,” he says, voice low. “The bad cases. The way we both cope and can understand it.”

She gives him a half smile. “You can stop selling, Elliot. I’ve already invested.”

He smiles back, looking slightly tired. “Keep reminding me. I might believe it soon.”

She reaches out and puts her hand on the side of his neck, and he dips forward and lets her kiss him. Then he’s up and off the bed and grabbing his phone and badge from the nightstand. “Talk to you in a bit,” he says.

“Okay.”

And he’s out of her bedroom. She hears him walking across her floor and gathering his jacket and then her front door opening and closing, and the distant sound of him hitting the stairs.

And then it’s quiet and she’s alone.

But she doesn’t feel lonely.

Not even a little.

* * * * *


	15. Combustion

* * * * *

Lucy’s apartment is a tiny efficiency tucked away on a block of warehouses and empty storefronts. They don’t find it until two days after her death, and Olivia hopes it will shed some light on her family.

But when they get inside, they realize they have something else.

There is broken glass on the floor, and upset furniture, and on her tiny, faded kitchen table someone has poured salt in the shape of a cross.

Clay immediately calls the crime scene unit in, and Olivia takes a careful walkthrough. Nothing about Lucy’s case is typical. The autopsy report came back yesterday morning, and while she’d had ligature marks around her neck indicating strangulation--the seemingly most common MO of the killer--the medical examiner had determined the cause of death as poisoning.

 _”Poisoning?”_ Clay had exclaimed, looking at her in amazement. _”What the hell is that about?”_

And she hadn’t known. It had seemed illogical that it wasn’t the Holy Roller who had killed Lucy. Not with Olivia’s business card stuffed in the woman’s mouth. And especially now, with the cross salted into her kitchen table. But the poisoning had been… perplexing.

“How did he get her here, where she lives?” Clay asks as he walks up on her in the middle of the room. He’s shoving his cell phone back in his pocket.

Olivia shakes her head absently, her gaze going over everything, trying to see every detail. “She doesn’t seem like the type to bring johns back to her place. She wasn’t that stupid.”

Clay kneels down and points at a paper coffee cup. The coffee is dried onto the floor in streaks after a half-hearted attempt to wipe it up. “You don’t think this is the poison attempt, do you?”

She kneels down next to him and stares at it. “Could be. He could have forced her to drink it.” She pulls one of the evidence bags from her jacket pocket that she keeps as extras. “Killed her here and then dumped her in the alley. He couldn’t leave her here if he wanted her to be found.”

“Or maybe,” Clay says, watching as she picks the cup up and drops it in the bag. “She knew the guy.”

Olivia sighs and then nods, because it’s the most logical conclusion. She looks at Clay. “She knew him well enough to let him in, or at least to open the door. And she knew him enough to drink the coffee he brought.”

“Let’s get it tested before we make any more assumptions,” Clay says, but his eyes are glinting at her.

And she knows what he’s thinking. That if Lucy did know this guy. If it’s someone this close, then he’s finally fucked up. He’s getting desperate and he’s getting sloppy and he’s given them a lead that might just take him down.

Finally.

* * * * *

This time the divorce goes smoother. Of course, he has a distance this time he didn’t have before. The only kid they work into the decree is Eli. The rest are all over 18 and can decide their own lives. Kathy seems to trust that he’ll do what he can for them, and instead of anger, they actually chat in relaxed tones when they meet.

They work out the specifics quickly and send the papers for filing, and it will still take months to work through the courts, but that’s okay.

The morning of Lucy’s funeral, he meets Kathy and both of their lawyers for a short meeting. It ends quickly and then he can either head to work or to the funeral, and he drives toward the cemetery where Lucy will be interred.

He’d asked Olivia if she’d wanted him to come, and she’d said no, that he didn’t need to show up. She and Clay had spent the week chasing down leads on the autopsy results, and chasing down Lucy’s family for notification. It hadn’t ended well. She’d had little family, and of those members they had found, only a brother had expressed any sadness at all.

He knows, from all their years in SVU, how women end up on the streets, and having a family who doesn’t give a shit is one of the big reasons.

He knows also that Olivia is having a hard time with this, and he can’t just let her handle it alone.

He’s learned the balancing act over the years, between letting her have her own space for emotional management, and pressing her to talk. He doesn’t always get it right, but he’s learned.

At the cemetery, there is only one funeral going on, and the crowd is sadly lacking. He parks next to Crowder’s Pathfinder and watches for a while. He didn’t know Lucy personally, and while he wants to be here, he doesn’t want to intrude on a moment that he has no right to.

The day is foggy and gray and misting, and it’s been rainy and cool all week, since the day of Lucy’s death. The best cliché.

Olivia and Clay stand with their backs to him, close together, heads bowed. They’re both in their usual clothes, dressed for the street. He sees a minister that he recognizes from a church-based charity and shelter that often caters to women only. There’s another man, in a suit and rain jacket who stands alone across the grave, and he wonders if that’s the brother.

The mist finally covers the windshield and his side windows, and it feels wrong anyway to sit in the dry comfort of his jeep while Olivia stands in the rain.

He slips out and closes the door quietly and leans back against the door, watching.

The minister’s voice carries in the fog, but Elliot can’t understand the words. He watches as Olivia leans toward Clay and they touch shoulder-to-shoulder comfortingly. Crowder glances at her frequently, and occasionally leans over to talk into her ear, and Olivia nods at his words and stays close to him.

It does make him feel annoyingly jealous. It has always been his place, standing beside her. The one she turns to when she needs help. The one who can stand inside her personal space and belong there. The one who can whisper to her and have her nod and understand and lean in because she trusts him. Because they are Olivia And Elliot. Benson And Stabler. And they belong together.

This is what he will have to overcome if he wants her, he knows. They can’t be partners if they’re lovers, and odds are great that her new partner will be a man. It’s… hard.

He trusts her, he does, but he’s not sure how other men do it. How they hold on so loosely and seem unconcerned about it. He just wants… all of her.

He watches as she slips her hands in her jacket pockets and seems to hunch down further into the warmth and dryness the coat provides. Her head is uncovered and when she turns to glance at Crowder, he can see the familiar profile of her face.

It provokes an immediate reaction in him. Longing and the desire to protect. It makes him want to walk right up there and put his arms around her and tell her it will be okay. It makes him want to glare at Crowder until he gets the hint and walks away.

He resists. And somehow he knows, deep inside, that his restraint is one of his biggest gifts to her.

His desire to protect her is something a little different. He knows she can handle herself. She can watch his back and her own and, hell, sometimes he is convinced that they are _not_ equal at their jobs at all. That, indeed, in their partnership, she is the stronger and he has finally been relegated to follower.

And she’s never had the expected reactions to his protectiveness. She doesn’t get angry or laugh it off. Instead she doesn’t seem to know what to do with it at all. She gets awkward and embarrassed; as if she is absolutely baffled that anyone could care that much about her.

He knows where that comes from, of course, and maybe it’s the combination of her sad beginnings and her real reactions that make him feel so much more protective of her than anyone except his kids.

The funeral breaks up then, and Olivia talks to both the minister and the man in the suit for a few minutes, shaking both of their hands. Crowder follows, and then they turn and start walking slowly toward him, their heads down, their shoulders bumping.

He waits for her to see him, and when she glances up and finally does, he doesn’t see surprise in her expression. She does hesitate though, briefly, as she walks, causing Crowder to glance back and then at him.

Elliot keeps his gaze on Olivia.

She and Crowder stand and talk for a moment, and then they separate and Crowder walks toward his Pathfinder, glancing his way with a grim nod.

Olivia walks toward him, and when she’s a few paces away she gives him a pained smile. “You didn’t have to come,” she says.

“I did,” he insists. And he leaves it at that.

She smiles again and glances down, with that awkward, half-pained expression she has when he’s done something just for her, born out of his affection, and she doesn’t know what to do with him. “Thanks,” she says, quietly. And she leaves it too.

The mist is sticking to her hair and she looks cold, and he wants to wipe it all away and pull her close to him. Warm her up. But he keeps his hands in his pocket and leans back against the jeep. “It’s been a bad year for us,” he says. “Victim-wise.”

She nods and leans next to him. “Yeah. It hasn’t been great.”

“You have any new leads?”

She sighs and runs a hand over her hair, wiping the mist away. “She was poisoned in her apartment and then dumped in the alley. It has to be someone she knew well enough to know where she lived, and for her to let in the door. But it’s hard tracking down her life.”

He nods, understanding. He knows how it goes with the women on the street. Nomadic and untethered.

She looks tired and beat down, and he’s not feeling particularly spry himself these days.

“You ever think about leaving?” he asks. He realizes it’s a stupid question.

“Sometimes,” she says. “But I don’t know what I’d do instead.”

“I think about it,” he admits. “Sometimes I think about it a lot.”

She looks at him. “It’s cost you a lot,” she says, quietly. “This job.”

He looks back at her. “It’s brought me something too,” he says. “Something important.”

And he holds her gaze, until she swallows and looks away.

“Come on,” he says, slipping his hand around her wrist. “I’ll drive you back to work.”

And she lets him put her into the warmth and dryness of his jeep and drive her away.

* * * * *

She can’t focus on her work.

In the two weeks since Lucy’s death, they’ve hit the streets hard, gathering names and chasing down suspects. The nature of Lucy’s life has made it hard to find the people she knew. They have a list of names and a list of descriptions but very few solid, real people they’ve been able to identify and interview.

Still, it’s better than nothing.

Unfortunately, their paperwork has piled up, neglected, for that same two weeks, until Jackson pulled them from the street and sat them down for the day to get caught up.

The sun has finally come out again, and Olivia can look up from her desk and watch the silent sunny day going on outside the window.

A paperclip hits her in the fingers, and she glances over at Clay.

“You’re daydreaming again,” he accuses.

She gives him a disapproving look. “I’m just thinking,” she protests.

“About what?”

“About everything.” She keeps it vague.

“About Elliot?”

She shrugs.

“About Lucy?” He tries again.

She takes a breath and doesn’t answer.

Clay watches her for a moment and then says, “Do cases always hit you this hard?”

She feels a spark of irritation. Like he’s criticizing her, even though his tone is soft. “No,” she says. “You learn to cope with it. It’s just… I felt like Lucy was… different.”

“Different how? Stronger? You know that’s not how it works.”

“No,” she says. “Not stronger. Just… different.” She’s not sure what she means. It’s a feeling, not a clear, linear thought. “She just didn’t seem like… his type.”

Clay watches her for a long moment again. “Maybe you should take a break.”

“I’m okay,” she says. “We started early so we only have a few more hours anyway.”

“No,” he says, quietly. “I mean… maybe you should think about… whether this case is really worth it or not. For you.”

“What?” she glances at him, confused.

He sighs. “I just mean… this has been hard on you the past few weeks. It’s okay to let it go, Liv. If you need to.”

She glares at him. “I’m not giving up on this now. I’m not going to walk away and leave this guy out there, killing.”

“We could hand it off. Maybe new eyes would help. I’m just saying, maybe it’s time to admit that it’s too much for us.”

“No!” she exclaims. She furrows her brow at him. “Why are you trying to talk me into walking away? This guy is starting to unravel. He’s making mistakes. We need to hit him harder now!”

Clay looks a little addled. “I’m not telling you to give up. I just… I don’t know… I don’t want to see this take you down, Liv.” He swallows and holds her gaze. “I care about you.”

“Then let’s just keep working, okay?” she says. She looks into his blue eyes with an unyielding intensity.

He doesn’t look away. “Okay,” he agrees.

They work silently again for a while, and then he stands up and excuses himself. “I’m going to go out and get something to drink. Want anything?”

“No,” she says, and she watches as he walks toward the elevator.

There is tension between them sometimes now. Something strained and uneasy. Ever since she found out about his involvement with Leila. They haven’t found their footing with each other again, despite staying close.

She doesn’t like it. She wants them to be like they were, joking and talking, and there’s still a lot of that. But it’s the first major blow to their partnership, and it’s taking some time to work through it.

 _Their first major blow._ She’s thinking like they’re permanent partners. Like she’s left Elliot behind already.

And she hasn’t.

But her feelings toward Elliot have been changing. He’s her partner, yes, and he has been for a long time. She’ll probably never be able to completely erase that view of him from her psyche.

But she has different memories now too. Of lying next to him in bed and feeling his arms around her. Of listening to his hard, aroused breathing and feeling the heat of his mouth on hers.

The way he came for her at the scene of Lucy’s death and took her home. The way he went toe-to-toe with her and then changed games halfway through when she lost it. The way he seemed to feel the pain right along with her, even though he didn’t know Lucy.

She had expected all of that from him, and yet had still felt surprised by it.

Clay’s words come back to her. _“You only live one life, Olivia. Don’t waste that.”_

She picks up the phone.

Elliot answers on the second ring. “Hey,” he says, without a hello. “I’ve got an idea.”

She makes a face, even though he can’t see it. “Do you just wait for me to call so you can hit me with random thoughts?”

“No, you just happen to call when I’m about to pick up the phone.”

“Well, that’s a little scary.”

“I know,” he agrees. “No wonder people thought we were sleeping together for years.”

She rolls her eyes. “What’s your idea?”

“I think we should go see Nick Dunn in prison.”

“Okay,” she says, skeptically. “But he doesn’t talk to anyone, so why do you think this time will be any different?”

“Because we’re going to mess with him a bit.”

“I’m assuming you have a plan?”

“I do,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his tone. Smug bastard.

“Well, it better be a pretty good one. He’s serving time in Attica. It’ll take us over half the day to drive there.”

“Look,” he says. “We need to narrow down the possible resting sites for Mary’s body, right?”

“Yes,” she agrees.

“I think what we need to do is go there and talk to him in person. He’s been on ice for a while. He’s probably dying to know what we’ve found, if anything. So we decide on a few of the most probable locations and we get maps of the areas. We’ll write all over them with notes and stuff, and give them all big location names in magic marker. Then we’ll go in there and spread them all out on the table, but we don’t talk about them. If he asks, we just act like it’s not a concern and we really want him to talk about this or that, but we leave those maps right out there for him to see.”

“Okay,” Olivia says, sitting upright in her chair. She sees where he’s going. “And then we watch and see which one he looks at the most.”

“Exactly,” Elliot says, excitedly. “I’ll talk and you watch him. If we’ve got a map that’s even close to the place he dumped her, he’s not gonna be able to resist looking at it. He’s gonna be really worried that we’re close and he’s going to keep trying to see what we’ve written on the map.”

Olivia is silent for a moment, thinking. And then, “Jesus, El, that’s brilliant.”

He snorts in embarrassment. “Yeah, well, I talked to Huang about it a bit too.”

“That could really work. It would at least eliminate a bunch of places if he wasn’t concerned about any of them.”

“Yeah,” Elliot agrees. “I mean, we’ll have to be smart about which maps we choose. We can’t keep going back and doing it over and over. He’ll figure it out pretty quickly. But we’ve got one really good, clear shot at him this way.”

She catches his excitement. “Yes,” she says. “Yes!”

“I’ll set it up then, if you want,” he offers. “Maybe in a couple of weeks? Over a weekend.” The city won’t pay for them to work a closed case, even though the body has never been found.

“Go ahead,” she says. “We’ll need time to work on the maps anyway.”

“All right,” he says, and she can hear how pleased he is.

She smiles. Excited about the possibility of finding Mary and proud of him for coming up with an idea that might just work. “Hey,” she says, lightly. “You know, we never did reschedule that drink, the night Lucy died.”

He pauses and then says, “Yeah, I wanted to give you some time.”

“Thanks,” she says, quietly.

“Sure.”

“Maybe we can reschedule for Saturday,” she finally says, feeling a little dry-mouthed. “If you’re not busy.”

It’s moving forward in their relationship. It’s taking a step.

“I’m not,” he says. And then, “But how about we change it to dinner?”

She takes a breath. “Like… a date?” She says it with a nervous laugh.

“Exactly like a date,” he states.

“I, uh…” And she stumbles a bit as her nerves kick in.

“We aren’t partners right now,” he says, softly. “And I’m almost divorced, and we might as well dive right in.”

“It just…” She winces and bites her lip. “Doesn’t seem like our thing. We’ve been partners for twelve years, and now we’re going to go on a date?”

“Why not?” he demands. “I want that, Liv. I want to take you out and spend one night not talking about crime scenes. I want you to wear one of those date-night dresses for me instead of one of the other guys I’ve had to watch you go out with over the years.”

She thinks about that. About wearing a dress just for him. About what he might wear. About going out and doing all the flirty, date-like things with him instead of all the casual attractions she’s had over the years.

It sends a slow, burning heat through her limbs.

“It’s just…” she starts. “We seem so past that point now.”

“We deserve this,” he says. “After all the shit we’ve gone through? We deserve to go on one date like normal people and think about each other naked over dinner and see what happens.” He sighs. “Shit,” he swears then, like a frustrated afterthought.

“Naked?” she repeats, amused, but a little dry-mouthed too.

“Yeah, well,” he says, his tone softening.

“Okay,” she says, a little hoarsely.

“You’re serious?” he asks, and he lowers his voice until the tone sends a tremor through her.

“Yes,” she says. “Saturday?”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “You know how Friday nights are around here.”

She does. “Come to my place. I’ll take you to a little restaurant I just found. You’ll like it.”

“All right.”

She feels some nervous energy then. Ridiculous, considering they’ve slept next to each other twice already, not counting the endless nights in the crib or on stakeouts.

“I’ll see you then,” she says.

“Oh yeah,” he replies. “You will.”

And she has to hang up before she embarrasses herself.

* * * * *

It isn’t as if she’s never dressed up for Elliot. Well, not specifically. There were times, in their early years, and maybe in their later years too, where she’d show up at the precinct in a slip of a dress and bare shoulders and legs, called away from a date for a case.

And she’d always been hyper-aware of Elliot’s reactions: the little jolt she’d see in his eyes, the way his gaze would slide over her in a slow, almost resigned way. And, in a possibly more revealing response, the way he’d sometimes refuse to look at her at all.

Her secret is that in some of those cases, she’d had plenty of time to go home and change. She just hadn’t wanted to bother, and maybe too she’d been a little curious to see her co-workers’ responses.

Fin’s teasing affection had always been great for lifting her ego. Elliot too, even if his responses had been mixed with all those heavy things they carried between them. More dangerous by far and thus it had driven him away from her on those nights.

But now she puts on a little black dress, and it really is for him, and out of everything they’ve shared the past few months, this is the strangest. This odd feeling as she slides a slippery dress on and brushes her hair and applies make-up and walks through a hint of perfume.

A date.

Like, a real date.

With dinner, and talking and, potentially, flirting. Maybe more.

Her partner.

She can’t quite pull off those little slip dresses she wore ten years ago. She’s watched Elliot age over the past decade, but she has too. She’s fuller in some places, good and bad, and she wants sexy without crudeness.

The day has been sunny and hot, a little humid, and at 7 o’clock, the sun is still warming the city. She pulls on a thin, black sweater to cover her bare shoulders. She can handle the few blocks they have to walk on high heels, but they aren’t the highest pair she owns.

He knocks early, and she’s surprisingly calm. Maybe she should feel more thrown by the fact that her partner is here, ready to take her out to dinner, and she’s put her ‘fuck-me’ dress on for him.

She doesn’t though. Mostly, she just wants to forget about the job tonight and really see _him_.

When she opens the door he looks at her and his eyes immediately drift downwards. “Christ, Liv,” he says, softly.

That, oddly, does spur her nerves into a little awkward dance, and she steps back from the door with a smile, smoothing a hand over her hair. He steps inside, and his gaze is all over her, flickering away and back, and then his blue eyes hold hers and he gives her a faint smile.

She walks away from him to get her bag, and the distance makes her calmer. She hesitates and says, “It’s a nice night to walk.”

“Yeah,” he says. His voice is low.

She turns, and it’s only then she really gets the full picture. He’s wearing a black suit she’s never seen before, and a white shirt with no tie. The first few buttons of the shirt are undone and there is a tanned strip of chest visible, and it’s a cliché, she knows, because he’s always had that hint of the stereotypical mobster in him, even as a cop.

But her mouth runs dry just looking at him.

He’s freshly shaven and he might have just had a haircut, and she can clearly see the blue of his eyes in the evening sunset. The suit is more fitted than his work clothes, and he’s wearing black boots that actually have a shine to them.

“Ahh,” she says, and then she’s not sure she’s capable of more. Which is just as well, because his gaze hasn’t stopped running up and down her dress since he got there.

“Wow,” he says then, quietly, and she hears the thick sound of him swallowing. “This night is going to be, uh, different.”

And she kind of wants to kiss him for throwing it out there, getting it out of the way. She takes a breath and thinks that maybe she should have offered to cook. They could have stayed in and kept their struggles to themselves.

But as she walks toward him, his eyes lift to hers and stay there, and there’s a piercing quality to them that nearly makes her shiver, and she realizes that they really need to get out of here. That staying by themselves will quickly devolve into something else.

Something with less clothing and more moaning.

“Let’s go,” she says, softly, and she tugs at his sleeve as she passes him.

He follows her out, and she heads for the small elevator hidden in the dark hallways of her apartment building. It’s rarely used because it’s old and takes a long time, but it’s useful occasionally, and she thinks it beats taking a header down the stairs in her heels because she’s too distracted to watch where she’s going. Call her a cynic if you want, but a broken neck sounds like a mood killer.

But in the small elevator, Elliot has room to spread out, and she suddenly wishes she’d just risked the stairs. He stands against the back railing and spreads his arms wide and leans on his hands and slants his hips, and it makes his jacket gape open and she can’t keep her eyes from the leanness of his waist or the way his shirt stretches over his chest.

When she lifts her gaze to his eyes, he’s staring at her, and it jolts her.

A corner of his mouth turns up in a smile, but his eyes are heat.

She gives him a faint smile and braces her hip against the side rail, and watches the lights as the elevator slowly sinks to the lobby. She can feel him watching her, and she licks her lips.

On the street, there is distraction. People walking, cars moving, and the summer sun is going down. It’s still warm and humid but almost lazily so.

Elliot walks close beside her, his shoulder behind hers, his hand in his pocket. It feels intimate and yet familiar, because he’s always walked this way with her on the city streets. It made it easier to converse about the case as they walked, and they’d quickly grown accustomed to accidental touches. Hell, within the first month of meeting, they’d been taking swallows of each other’s coffee.

“This place is going to have something I like to eat, right?” he asks as they walk, and she can hear the teasing tone in his voice.

She glances at him and rolls her eyes, but smiles. “No, Elliot. I’m taking you to eat raw fish and seaweed, because _that’ll_ be the best way to get into your pants.”

He grins at that. A full-on, amused grin that shows white teeth and deep furrows around his eyes, and it makes her hold her breath for a moment. “Whether you get in my pants or not,” he says. “Is completely unconnected to which restaurant you take me to.”

There is an obvious opening there that she does not take, because they’ve only just started this date, and she has an entire night to get through yet.

When they turn onto the block where the restaurant sits, the crowds grow thicker with Friday night date traffic. She is used to men staring at her, even when she tries her best to be invisible. They stare now, and she doesn’t feel so annoyed. The women who turn their heads to watch Elliot though… They’re a different matter. It’s strangely discomforting.

But then Elliot’s warm hand suddenly lands on the back of her neck, and even as he walks almost completely behind her, the crowd parts like he’s a charging bull. She’s always felt a little awkward around his masculine posing. It is effortless for him, and so ingrained that it’s become almost a caricature. But tonight she feels turned on by it, and it makes her mouth run dry to feel his confidence, and to watch people respond to it.

She directs them to a small restaurant, dimly lit and sparse with people. They specialize in fairly simple foods, whole and cooked well. They don’t drown their recipes in salt and cheese, and she’s never felt weighed down after eating here.

The host gives her a nod of recognition and leads them to a corner table, and she gives him a brilliant smile in return. Elliot insists he’ll drink wine, even though she tells him to drink beer, and they both order the tenderloin special with salad and bread, and then she leans back in her chair and the sun is setting in the restaurant window.

The warm, fading light makes silhouettes of the people walking by the glass, and she sips her wine and feels surreal. She has been on a hundred dates, maybe more, and there is a feel to being out in it. Out in the city with everyone else, trying to make a connection. But tonight she is with the one man with whom she already has a connection.

She doesn’t feel nervous, but she feels wound up, and restrained, and oddly disbelieving in a sense.

“Stop it, Liv,” Elliot says, softly, his mouth resting against the rim of his wine glass as he takes a swallow. “Stop thinking too much.”

And she wants to. She really does. “I’m trying,” she finally says, deciding that honesty is clearly the theme of the night, and maybe it’s the one thing they haven’t tried in all these years.

He gives her a dangerous smile and he holds her gaze with glittering eyes, “Try harder,” he orders in a low, rough voice, and he leans forward, elbows on the table, his shoulder muscles bunching and flexing, and there is so much sex in him that her entire body heats up for a moment. A twisting, burning torch. She takes a big swallow of the chilled wine.

He is flustering her.

This man whom she has spent the past 12 years with, facing the worst of the job with and the best. Who she has sometimes wanted to throttle with her bare hands, but who she also couldn’t give up if her life depended on it. They should be completely disenchanted by each other by now, and he’s sitting there across the table, giving her that wolfish grin he has and using that low voice, and he’s flustering her as easily as he flusters a teenage perp in interrogation.

She takes a deep breath and shakes her head, finishing her first glass of wine quickly. Christ, she needs to stop that. If she keeps it up, she’ll be drunk by dessert.

When she looks up, his gaze hasn’t left her, and she narrows her eyes at him and says, “This is so strange.”

He arches his eyebrows. “What?” He clearly knows ‘what’ but is going to make her say it.

She takes her time and pours another glass of wine for herself, taking a sip before looking into his eyes again. He is still looking at her like he wants to wreck her, but it is tempered slightly now, and she feels some semblance of power again. “That you’re sitting there,” she says, keeping her eyes pinned to his, “right now, flirting with me and looking at me like you want to eat me whole… And it’s the same look you’ve been giving me since the day we met.”

He smiles slowly at that. She expects some sort of deflecting joke, but he doesn’t make one. His gaze shifts, slightly, away from her and he looks far away for a moment, and then he says, “You weren’t afraid of me at all. You stood toe-to-toe with me from day one and stared me down. You wouldn’t even let me walk ahead of you half the time.”

She smiles at that, wanting to laugh at the memory. She remembers herself in that first year with him and even she can’t quite believe how green she’d been. But she’d been determined. Once Karen had pointed her in the right direction and put the whole idea of SVU in her head, it had never been anything less than a passion.

“You weren’t how I thought you’d be,” she says, pensively. “Everybody warned me about you. How you were an asshole on the best of days. But I didn’t see that at all.”

He lifts his gaze to hers and snorts softly. “You’re just blind when it comes to me, Liv. Always have been.”

She smiles wryly. “Or maybe it’s just that I’m still not afraid of you and never have been.”

That brings the slow smile back to his face and he tilts his head down slightly, looking up at her through lowered lashes. “Even when we fought and you wouldn’t speak to me for days, the silence was different. Your silence was…” He licks his lips. “Harder. Physical. I could _feel_ it, like ice water down my back. It was…” He takes a deep breath and lets it out again. “Very. Exciting.” He says the last two words in a low rasp.

It sends a sharp stab of arousal right into the pit of her stomach and between her legs, and she shifts, uncomfortably, and swallows down a dry throat. She wants to breathe faster.

“El,” she says, quietly, maybe slightly pleadingly, because while the restaurant isn’t crowded, it is still public, and she is suddenly very aware of the waiters and the other patrons, only ten feet away.

“So,” he continues, meeting her gaze with a piercing stare. “Yeah. I’ve always looked at you like I wanted to eat you whole, but that’s only because I did.”

She bites the inside of her lip.

The pain only seems to intensify her want. She lets him win and she looks away, grabbing her wine glass up again to take a cooling sip. It turns into heat in her throat though, and then adds to the fire in her blood.

“Not always,” she finally says, and her own voice sounds like a rasp now. She stares at her wine instead of into his eyes. “Sometimes you looked at me like you couldn’t stand to see me for one more minute.”

He’s silent for a moment, and then he says, “Self-preservation.” And then, “And maybe a little anger too, that you made me feel something I didn’t want to feel. Even though it was really my own fault. I couldn’t control my own feelings.”

She’d known that. She’d felt it too. Had the same instincts. “And you always protected me. Not just my body or my back. But _me_. Everything that made me who I am,” she says absently, lost a little in the past herself.

She remembers how aggressively he’d guarded her secret about her mother’s rape, and then how zealous he’d been with his protection after she’d told the rest of the SVU. Munch, who’d always meant well, had fallen victim to Elliot’s zeal more than once.

“And I always will,” Elliot says, and when she glances up, he’s staring into her eyes so earnestly and intensely that she loses her breath for a moment.

 _Jesus_ , she thinks, _it feels like we’re reciting vows._

It doesn’t get more relaxed when their food comes and they eat. It is, however, good enough to break through the racing sparks in her blood.

They talk about work a bit, but mostly about people they know, and Elliot smiles at her with that flirtatious grin and his glittering blue eyes, and she feels completely disarmed by him. It is a side of him she’s seen but not experienced so thoroughly. And she’s rarely had it so focused on her.

It both keeps her flustered, and makes her want to meet him head-on and best him.

She feels different with him. More confident, and less, because he has a power over her that other men have never had. But she knows him too. Knows his secrets and his history and all of the inner buttons to push.

She lingers over the last glass of wine, and he looks at her over the table and asks, “What do you want to do now?”

And there are a hundred cliché answers on the tip of her tongue that she could offer up, but there’s only one thought consuming her, and she almost can’t sit still.

“Walk home,” she says, and she lets him take that as he will.

He holds her gaze and she sees too much in his eyes. He wants her, and he makes no excuses for it. He lets her see it plainly. She doesn’t glance away.

“Then let’s go,” he says, and he stands as she does, never taking his eyes from hers.

He puts his hand on the back of her neck as she walks past him, and it almost makes her gasp. She wants more of it. More of his hands on her, and more of his heat.

Outside, the city distracts her, and she pulls her sweater on.

She’s feeling pleasantly high from the wine and the heat of the day has diminished to a lazy warmth. The crowds have thinned out a bit as people found their places in bars and restaurants, and as they walk, her hand brushes Elliot’s.

His fingers tangle briefly with hers, and then his hand slips around hers and holds.

It’s a weird moment. Stunning really. Something small that shouldn’t affect her this way, she thinks, but it does. She is holding hands with Elliot while they walk down the street, and it makes that wine in her blood flare up into sparks and heat and an ache that is both good and bad at the same time.

“Okay?” he asks her, quietly, and somehow he sees.

“Yeah,” she answers, but her voice is not all there. She clears her throat. His hand tightens around hers. She swallows. “If Cragen drove by right now, he’d have a heart-attack.” Her instinct is to deflect the heaviness of the emotion by joking it away. It’s a hard habit to break.

Elliot snorts softly and then shrugs. “I… don’t think he’d be that surprised, to be honest.”

And she has to give him that. After all these years, and all the cases, and all their epic battles and all the times they’ve gone behind Cragen’s back or right at his face with their defense of each other… their feelings are probably not the biggest mystery the NYPD has ever solved. She smiles, tentatively. Glances at him. “Yeah,” she agrees. “You’re probably right.”

As they turn off the well-lit busy street of clubs and restaurants and onto the quieter few blocks of apartment buildings and walk-ups that come before her own, he eases his stride and they walk slowly.

“We’re being really honest tonight,” he says, almost as if he can’t quite believe it.

She knows the feeling. “Yes,” she says. “Maybe we needed it.”

He glances around and licks his lips nervously, and she can feel something inside of him that he wants to get out, and she’s nervous for a moment.

“You can ask me anything,” he finally says. “I’ll tell you the truth.” And she can hear what he’s really offering. All those hazy, blurred lines over the years, all those horrible cases. Maybe now’s the time to talk.

But curiously, as much as she’s wanted to just talk it all out some days, she doesn’t want to do it now. “Anything?” she asks.

“Yes.”

She thinks for a moment, and she’s still getting used to feeling his hand around hers, and then she asks, “What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?”

She’s watching him from the corner of her eye, and he frowns slightly and then looks at her. “That’s it?” he asks. “I say you can ask me anything, and you ask about my favorite flavor of ice cream?”

“Yes,” she says, softly. “I mean, I guess we could talk about Victor Gitano or Dean Porter or Kathy or Oregon, but why? This night has been… nice. We’ve been… talking, El. About work, but also not about work, and I don’t want to bring all that crap into this. Not right now.”

He stops walking and turns toward her, his gaze searching over her face, and then the corner of his mouth tugs upward. “Vanilla,” he says. “I like plain vanilla, when they use real vanilla beans and not the artificial flavoring. Nothing can beat it.”

She laughs. “Why am I not surprised that you’re a vanilla sort of guy?”

He raises an eyebrow at that. “Oh,” he says. “I can change it up when I want to. I just see nothing wrong with the original. It still has the same… spark, for me.” His eyes carry a light when he talks in innuendo.

She bites her lip a bit and smiles. This matches the image of Elliot in her head. The guy who loves sex but doesn’t need it to be kinky and edgy. The guy who loves it every time, and it doesn’t matter how.

“What about you?” he asks, and he’s flirting. He’s standing close, stepping closer, tilting his head back so he can look down at her from under lowered lashes, a teasing smile on his face. “What’s your favorite?”

She stands her ground and doesn’t let him back her up. She smirks at him. “Blue Moon,” she says.

“What the hell is that?” he asks, amused.

She smiles slowly at him. “It’s blue and smooth, and I like it because it’s clean and sweet and doesn’t have those big chunks of cake or candy in it. It’s hard to find though. I had it in Oregon, and there’s a shop in Brooklyn that has it, but I think it’s mostly in the Midwest. I tried to find it on the internet once.”

He stares at her and then shakes his head. “Yeah,” he says, paradoxically. “That figures. You’ve always been a troublemaker, Olivia. You never take the easy road.”

“Are we psychoanalyzing each other through ice cream flavors now?” she asks, teasingly.

He’s still looking at her with those glittering eyes. “You started it,” he says.

She purses her lips for a moment, holding his gaze. “I guess I did.”

They just stare at each other for a moment, and then he steps even closer, until she can feel his heat and the brush of his fingers against hers. “So,” he says, voice low and maybe dangerous. “Make some trouble, Olivia.”

And she isn’t sure if it’s a warning or a plea or a command, and she’s not sure he knows either. He is so close, and she can smell the hint of aftershave he used tonight, and she can see the smooth, clean-shaven texture of the skin on his jaw. He looks so solid and unyielding and strong, and so, so familiar.

“I don’t take the easy road, remember?” she says, so quietly that her voice is almost a whisper. And maybe it’s her last defense. Her last warning to him that he can turn back now.

He nods, slightly, his brow furrowed. He looks angry, but she knows he’s not. He’s just… intent. On her. “Yeah,” he says, his voice a rasp. “But I like that, remember?”

She nods, and his fingers slide around hers, not grasping, but lightly tangling, and it’s an arousing tickle against her palm. Her mouth is dry again. The half bottle of wine she’d had with dinner is still a pleasant heat in her head.

“So, make some trouble,” he repeats, and this time it sounds like a plea. Like he is burning up and desperate for water, and she is the one holding the glass. Maybe she is.

She grabs the fingers tangling with hers and pulls down, and he comes to her instantly. He leans down and gives her his mouth, and she kisses him. She slides her free hand onto the back of his neck and presses him against her, and it is a relief. It is like water on a fire, but it doesn’t put the flame out. It just drives it higher.

She opens her mouth and slides her tongue against his, and he groans and kisses her back like he wants to devour her. Like he’s always wanted to consume her.

It isn’t just a spark in her blood. It’s waves of sparks rushing through her body, pooling between her legs, creating an ache that makes her shiver. She pulls him back, toward the buildings, and he grabs her around the waist to keep them balanced as he follows.

They end up in someone’s doorway alcove, her back against their front door and Elliot pressing up against her, his body shielding her from the street. He kisses her hard enough to grind the back of her head against the door, and the pain does nothing to diminish that ache in her. She pulls him closer and really hopes the tenants of this apartment aren’t home.

He’s sliding his hands down over her dress, over her hips, fisting his hands into the slippery material and dragging it up a bit, and she arches her pelvis out a bit, towards him, until they are pressed together.

He’s breathing hard. She probably is too, but all she can hear is him.

She slides her arms around his waist and over his lower back. The furrows of muscle there flex and harden under her fingers, and it’s a familiar action. Pulling a man toward her with her hands on his lower back. Pulling him deeper.

And she wants that. She wants Elliot. She wants his weight between her legs and she wants to feel him inside of her, and she wants to slide her hands over his bare skin and listen to him groan when he comes. And the rest of the world is just a hazy blur in her mind.

“Liv,” he says, breathlessly and a little tortured, against her mouth. “Take me home.” And there’s a pause there at the end that she thinks holds the word ‘please’, but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have to beg.

There are voices on the street, and she takes a breath and then she takes his hand and she looks at him, and she doesn’t have to say anything. He starts determinedly down the block toward her apartment, his hand tightening on hers, leading her.

She feels a little surreal and a lot impatient as they walk through the night. They are going home to go to bed, and it has her on tenterhooks.

In the lobby of her apartment building people are loitering and talking, and couples are waiting for cabs. It feels intrusive, just having them on the periphery of her world, and she starts for the stairs, but the elevator sits on the ground floor, open and empty, and she swerves to step inside instead. Elliot hits the button for her floor and the doors close on them, cutting off the outside world. She leans against the side railing of the car, feeling relief in the silence and still painfully aware of Elliot. The car starts upward in a slow, jerky motion, and he looks at her, restrained for now, and stands in front of her, resting his hands on the wall on either side of her.

He doesn’t do anything else, except lean close to her and hold her gaze and wait, and it is intimate in a way that is almost painful.

“Twelve years,” he says, in almost a whisper. And the way he is looking at her makes her feel both hungry and full.

She almost hits the emergency stop button and pulls him closer right there, but it would be limiting their time, and she’s never been big into the public display thing. She wants the privacy of her apartment and all the hours of darkness before dawn.

On her floor, he holds the elevator door back while she walks out, and then he follows her to her apartment. Inside, she locks the door behind them and then takes a breath and tries to settle her nerves.

When she turns, he’s sliding his jacket off. It’s cool in her living room, the air conditioning turned low because she likes it cold at night when she’s trying to sleep. She has one dim lamp on, and her blinds are still open, the streetlights shining in.

He walks up on her without fear and leans down, watching her eyes until he’s too close, and then his mouth is on hers. His hands slide around her waist and she steps back until the wall stops her. He stands against her and lifts his head and meets her gaze.

“This is all I could think about all night,” he says, like a confession. His voice is low and rough.

She wants to say it was the same for her, but it’s never been her instinct to tell him everything. Instead, she pulls the hem of his shirt out of his belt and slips her hands underneath, sliding her palms over his bare skin.

He takes a long, slow breath and settles more heavily against her.

“I’ve been trying not to think about it for twelve years,” she says, softly.

He barely touches his lips to hers and says, “You still have time to run.”

It’s an oddly aggressive thing to say, but maybe fitting. It drives a sharp longing through her heart.

“No,” she says, and she kisses him wetly, pulling at his lips, before taking him by the hand and leading him into her bedroom.

She doesn’t bother with the light, and he’s pulling her back to him as soon as they get through the door, burying his hands in her hair and covering her mouth with his. She toes her shoes off and it drops her a few inches and then he feels big to her. Stronger than her, taller, even though she’s only a few bare inches smaller than he is.

Maybe it’s their history, because she’s seen his rage, his raw power, his energy. And she wants it all.

He’s kissing her hard enough to force her backwards, following her to keep their mouths connected. She bumps up against her desk, and the streetlights are glowing through her slotted bedroom window blind.

It’s a low, solidly built wooden desk that she barely uses. It sits against the wall below her window, and she sometimes sits on it to watch the world spinning below her.

She wants to be face-to-face with him. Not buried beneath him. Not this time. And she pulls herself up onto the desk and sits there, a little querulously, while she pulls him between her legs and kisses him. His body anchors her and pins her there solidly.

His mouth swallows hers and his hands run over her shoulders, pushing the straps of the dress down, running over her back to her zipper. She has his shirt unbuttoned in moments, and her hands are on his belt when he starts pushing her dress down.

She feels the cool air on her back and then on her bare breasts and she grabs his head and sucks at his lower lip, keeping him from looking down. It’s deliberate. She’s teasing. And he exhales hard against her mouth and looks at her with sleepy eyes and says, “Liv,” like he’s in pain.

It sends a ripple of pleasure straight between her legs, and she can feel how wet she is already, before he’s even touched her there. But she wants him inside of her and the anticipation—twelve years of it—is almost overwhelming.

“I’m…” she starts to say, and she’s not sure what she wants to say. What she needs to say. _I’m getting overwhelmed. This is… so much._ But it doesn’t make sense to her, and she just wants to touch him.

She lets go of his head and he looks down. Down the length of his own body, to where she’s bare, and his jaw goes tight and his breathing deepens, and then his mouth is back on hers, renewed and vigorous, and his hands are sliding up, over her breasts. His palms are warm.

She slides her arms around his shoulders and lifts up a bit so he can get her dress off completely, and then the thin silk panties she wears. And then he has stripped her completely and she is dying.

He strips his shirt off as well, and this part of him is familiar. The big shoulders, the heavy muscle, the tattoos. She touches him in all the places she’s touched him through his suits over the years. Between his shoulder blades, around his ribs, over his lower back. Then she slips her fingers under the waistband of his trousers. Feels the warm skin there.

He steps out of his shoes and pulls his belt from its loops and drops it on the floor, and she is pulling him back between her legs, dipping her head so she can get their mouths together again. He kisses her in that consuming way he has while she unzips his slacks and holds his hips and slides her hand down inside as the pants slide down his legs.

He’s hard and hot and thick in her hand, and he groans as she grabs him, his mouth falling away from hers as he exhales.

She move her hand slowly, feeling all of him, releasing him to run her fingers over the hairy flex of his thighs.

He pushes her backwards with his body, until she’s leaning back nearly against the wall, and he brushes her lips with his and then drags his mouth down, over her neck. He is moving deliberately now, and his breath is heavy and hot against her skin.

His fingers dig into her thighs and then ease between her legs, and then he’s sliding one finger into the slickness there, rubbing it slowly over her clit, and she sucks in a breath at the sensation.

She can’t take much of that. Not tonight.

“Stop,” she whispers at him, and he does.

“Okay?” he asks, quietly. Breathlessly.

“It’s too much right now,” she says.

His mouth is close to her ear, and she feels him nod, and his lips touch her temple. And then he’s leading her legs around his waist, and she slides her arms around his ribs, under his arms, and grabs him by the back of his shoulders and pulls him closer, until she can feel the rigid length of his cock between her legs.

And then he lifts her up against him and she’s suddenly feeling him sliding inside of her.

All the breath stops in her lungs.

She tightens her legs around his waist, and his whole body is hard, and he lets gravity pull her down on top of him slowly, until she’s full of him.

 _Oh. Oh. God._

He’d stopped breathing too, the moment he’d entered her, and the room is silent with their awe. It brings her to a wire-taut edge, and all she can feel is how he stretches her and how they fit together. And then he lets the breath out of his lungs in one long, slow exhalation, and his arms tighten around her, holding her there, even as he trembles a bit on his feet.

She feels overwhelmed by it. Frozen by it. Like if she goes on, something will happen. She will burst into flame or her heart will stop or she’ll lose her mind.

She isn’t sure how he’s feeling, but he hasn’t moved since he got inside her and his chest heaves against her breasts. She can feel a tremor in one of them, but she isn’t sure if it’s him or her or maybe both of them.

She wants to move, and she’s afraid to, and God, all she can feel is _him_. _Inside_.

It’s too much and not enough at the same time and his mouth lowers to her shoulder and he says, “Olivia… _fuck_!” In a whisper so pained and so quiet that she knows she wasn’t meant to hear it.

Her hands have his shoulders in an iron grip and she puts her mouth against his skin there and closes her eyes and just holds herself still. _I know_ , she wants to say. _I know._

It is too much though, being held on that sharp edge. He is buried so deep that he is pressed intimately close, and every breath they take together is jarring them enough to make her gasp. She moans, quietly, at the intensity of it, and his hands tighten again on her thighs, instinctively.

It only drives him deeper still. And it feels so good, she has to move then.

She grits her teeth against his shoulder and digs her fingers into his skin and moves her hips just enough to send a wave of heat through her, and he makes a rough sound and surges forward then, stepping sideways around the desk to drive her back against the wall and thrusting into her.

It doesn’t take anything. She’s already coming. She sinks her teeth into his shoulder and digs her nails into his back and moves with him as it crashes over her, and he’s groaning in her ear and nearly driving the breath out of her as he crushes her back against the wall.

It just keeps going.

* * * * *

She tries to find her breath again as the climax ebbs.

Even with the relief, the tautness doesn’t let up, and she almost wants to growl with frustration. His body slows against hers, and she can feel his exhalations against her neck as he rests his forehead against the wall next to her. She smoothes her lips over the bite mark she left on his skin and swallows.

After a while, he relaxes.

“God,” he says, quietly, still a little breathless.

And she nods against his shoulder in agreement.

He turns and lets her slip down onto the desk again, and he’s finally not inside of her anymore, but he leans down over her, arms braced on either side, surrounding her as she leans back on one arm and looks him in the eyes.

“That was…” he says, in a rough, sticky voice. And then he doesn’t finish.

“Intense,” she says for him.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

“Too intense,” she says quietly. She lets her legs slip down over his hips.

“Yeah,” he says, and he’s close enough that she can feel his breath against her lips . “It was.” He looks her in the eyes. “But it won’t always be.” He’s trying to reassure her. And maybe himself too.

She is caught in his gaze, and it’s different now. Different because he’s been inside of her and they just went up in flames together and now he is something else to her. Something deeper.

“We just waited a long time,” he says, softly. His brow is furrowed as he looks at her. He looks angry. Or worried. But she knows that look well, and it lacks the intensity of his real anger. She slides her hand onto the back of his neck and pulls him down to her, kissing him gently.

His expression softens then, to something almost aching, and she needs a break. Her desk is going to be an absolute mess if she doesn’t get off of it soon.

He backs off and lets her up, and she heads to the bathroom.

* * * * *

When she comes back, he’s lying naked on her bed, and she pauses for a moment in the doorway, struck by the image. He’s stretched out, arms folded, hands behind his head, completely unselfconscious.

It’s scary sometimes, how much she wants him now. She can’t imagine how she contained it all these years, now that it’s out and she can really see how _much_ it is.

She walks over and lifts the sheet, and he moves to allow it to cover both of them. She settles on her back and he turns toward her.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says. She feels strange, but that’s starting to become familiar to her now. “You?”

He makes a low, wordless sound of agreement. His hand slides onto her stomach under the sheet and his fingers trace the bottom edge of her ribs. “We just need time, Liv.”

She nods slowly and reaches under the sheet to put her hand on his wrist and stroke her thumb over the hair on his forearm. She marvels a little that she is the one with all the sexual partners, and he’s the one with a 25-year marriage under his belt, and yet he’s the one reassuring her about sex.

 _Because it’s not just sex_ , her brain says, quite clearly. And the thought makes the breath in her lungs hitch a bit. Elliot has always felt the emotional things far more intensely than she has, and it all comes out of him in spectacular ways: anger, rage, violence, aggression. Is it any surprise that sex and love would be the same?

“I know,” she finally says, and she looks at him. She has seen him so many times in the darkness: in the crib, in the car on a stakeout, in the depths of a dusty warehouse just before Victor Gitano grabbed him up and put a shotgun to his head. “It was just… surprising.”

He rises up on his elbow beside her and leans over her a bit. “We built it up a lot.”

“Maybe we should have gotten drunk.”

He snorts at that. “No. I don’t want to follow that with a hangover.” The low timbre of his voice is scraping over her nerves in a way that makes her shiver. In a decidedly arousing way.

She wants him again, and she still feels uncomfortably tight. All over.

“Stay,” she says softly, reaching up to run her fingers over his smooth jaw.

He looks down at her with heavy-lidded eyes. “I couldn’t leave if I wanted to, Olivia,” he says. He leans close and curls his arm around her head and drags his lips over her ear, and that same low rasp says. “I’m still fucking hard.”

She shivers and her heart pounds, and she grabs the back of his neck and pulls him to her mouth.

It’s a slow kiss this time, and he slides one leg between hers, and she can feel the wiry hair on his thigh rubbing against the soft skin of her own. His cock is hard and pressed against her hip. He ignores it though, and works her mouth like he is savoring her.

When she digs her fingers into his lower back and pulls him against her, he breaks the kiss and looks into her eyes with a throat-drying intensity, his gaze sleepy and serious. And then he straddles her and takes her hands from his shoulders and pins them down on the mattress next to her.

His mouth lowers to her throat, and all she can do is breathe and struggle to hold still while he licks and sucks and bites at her skin. He moves down, and he takes his time, and she arches up into his mouth when he licks at her nipples, then sucks, then blows across them.

He keeps moving, tasting her everywhere, and her mouth waters, wanting a taste of him as well, but the heat is building inside of her again. That taut wire is tightening, and she feels a little drunk, even though the buzz of the wine has long since worn off.

It is dark and quiet in her room, and all she can hear is the air-conditioner kicking on and off, and Elliot’s mouth making wet sounds on her skin.

When his mouth presses between her legs, and his tongue touches her clit, she gasps and grabs at his shoulders, and she’s still over-sensitive. Too hyped up by the _idea_ of him. Of them together. To take very much.

He knows this maybe, because he shares it. He’s barely there, barely touching her, and then he’s sliding up her body again, fitting between her legs, and this time when he enters her, it’s just as slow but not as startling.

It’s still consuming though. Still a rush of sparks and heat and feelings.

He thrusts slowly, and he has control, and he keeps his body close to hers, so she can feel him moving against her. His breath is hard in her ear, and he rubs his mouth against her shoulder, her neck, her lips.

He’s swearing in whispers between his groans, and she’s digging her fingers into his lower back, pulling him deeper, and it feels like a dream.

When she comes, she loses herself a bit. It is sparks behind her eyelids, and she can’t breathe, and she grabs onto him like a life preserver.

He comes after her, forcing himself deep, a rumble in his chest, a tremor in his back. He groans her name.

It takes a while to come back to herself. But the relief is truly there now, and she is tired.

He is heavy on top of her, still inside of her, but he doesn’t move. She strokes his back, absently.

Everything has changed now, she thinks, and it is both terrifying and exciting at the same time. But, really, maybe they’ve always been that to each other. Terror and excitement.

He finally lifts himself off of her and slips to her side, and collapses there, and she is instantly cold as the air-conditioned breeze surrounds her. He slides an arm back over her, and she yanks the sheet up.

“You’re always cold,” he says in a thick, sleepy, amused voice.

“You’re always hot,” she responds absently, blinking slowly. Sleep is creeping up on both of them now. It’s been an intense night.

He moves closer and takes several deep breaths, sounding like he’s already almost asleep. “It’s fate,” he says.

She smiles in spite of herself. She is terrified.

“I love you, Olivia,” he says, softly, and it sounds like an afterthought. An unconscious slip while he’s half asleep.

She listens to him breathe, and she can tell when he actually goes out. When his breath becomes long and deep and slow, and his arm jerks just slightly as his body relaxes.

“I love you too,” she whispers, taking the risk that he might still be slightly awake.

He doesn’t answer. He just falls deeper into sleep.

And she relaxes and falls asleep too.

* * * * *


	16. Currents

* * * * * *

She wakes alone.

And the first feeling to hit her is a stab of disappointment. Sadness. Fear. Resignation.

And then she hears Elliot swearing beyond her bedroom door.

There is a wave of relief then, and the implications of her emotions are almost too telling. Too overwhelming. She has to tamp them back down, and she thinks, _Oh man, you are so screwed up, girl._

She has self-awareness, she just doesn’t particularly _want_ it.

The blankets and sheets on her bed are pulled up and twisted. She yanks the sheet out and wraps it around her before stepping out of her bedroom and looking for Elliot.

He’s in her kitchen, standing in front of her refrigerator, bending over a bit to look in, and he’s wearing only a pair of blue boxer briefs.

She smirks a bit as she watches him. She likes the hard lines of muscle in his back and his thighs. Even as familiar as he is to her, the physical attraction never seems to grow old.

“What are you doing?” she finally asks.

He jerks upright and turns to face her, letting the fridge door swing shut behind him. His eyes meet hers and there is that moment. That moment where they look at each other and remember everything they did the night before, and she feels heat and awkwardness and intimacy and affection all in a tangled mess.

Then he glares. “You have no food in this apartment, Olivia. Not one thing!”

She rolls her eyes. “Haven’t we gone through this before?”

He opens the fridge again and reaches in, then turns and holds up a soy sauce packet. “What do you eat for breakfast? Soy sauce? Or is ketchup more your thing?”

She smiles and shrugs. “I pick up breakfast on the way to work. And usually Clay and I eat together sometime during our shift. I don’t need any food here.”

“Really? I think you just don’t bother because it’s too much effort.”

“It’s the single lifestyle, El.”

Now he rolls his eyes, and she smiles again.

She glances at the clock and it’s nearly 10, and she eyes him suspiciously. “Don’t you go to church on Sunday mornings?”

He walks toward her. “When one of the kids is with me, yes. But I’m sort of a lost sheep on my free weekends.”

She raises an eyebrow at that, and he steps into her personal space and gives her that ‘I want to wreck you’ look that makes her stomach flutter a bit. “Sheep is not the word that comes to mind when I look at you, El,” she says, wryly.

He grins then, and it’s slow and sharp and a little wicked.

“You either,” he says, voice low, and he slips his finger under the edge of the sheet, at the top of her breasts. Her throat goes dry, and he carefully pulls and unwinds the sheet until he’s opened it, and she’s standing there naked, and he steps in and puts his arms around her, holding the sheet up against her back, so she doesn’t get cold.

Her breasts are against his chest, and she can feel all of him, from his feet against hers, to the warm, cloth-covered bulge of his cock, to the bit of scratchy hair on his stomach. She slides her arms around his waist.

He kisses her. Something long and slow and deep and wet, and she feels encased against him with the sheet behind her, trapping her warmth. He is big and heated and solid and tense and he feels safe and dangerous at the same time.

 _More like a wolf,_ she thinks.

His cell phone starts trilling from the jacket he’s left lying over the sofa back, and she recognizes the ring tone he uses for Cragen and she almost swears in annoyance.

He stops kissing her and does swear. “Shit.”

“I guess we need to get used to that,” she says, quietly.

He presses his lips to her forehead and hugs her tightly for a moment. “Yeah,” he says, and then he sighs heavily, and she doesn’t let him go for a moment. For a moment she tightens her arms around his waist and keeps him heavily against her, savoring the warmth, and then she lets go and she thinks, _We’ll have to tell Cragen soon, won’t we?_

He digs the cell phone out of his jacket pocket and answers it, even as he’s walking back toward her bedroom and his discarded clothes.

She sits on a stool at her counter and waits, and he comes back, fully dressed, and the clothes still look as good on him this morning as they did last night. Maybe even better, because they’re just slightly rumpled, and he looks just slightly tired, and unshaved, and it all screams to a night of sex that she was responsible for. And it’s a turn-on.

He’s still on the phone, firing questions at Don. “So is she already at the morgue or not?”

He makes eye contact with her and for a moment, his attention is fully on her. His eyes have a spark in them, and she sees attraction and affection and intensity, and then he walks to her and presses a silent kiss to her temple. She gives him a gentle smile, and then he’s out the door, and Sunday morning closes quietly around her.

* * * * *

She goes in to meet Clay at the office.

She knows he’ll be there today, even though it’s Sunday. That the case will be nagging at him the way it is with her.

They’ve been out of sorts lately, but she still feels like she knows him.

With Elliot on a case, she might as well work. Sitting in her apartment on the last Sunday of August feels criminal. She needs to get out, even if it’s just to the precinct.

“Why am I not surprised to find you here?” she asks as she places a cup of coffee and a breakfast burrito in front of Clay.

He looks up at her, unsurprised. “Why am I not surprised that you’re joining me?”

She smiles and then slumps down into her own chair—carefully, so she doesn’t spill her own coffee—and yawns.

Clay glances at the food and then at her, one eyebrow quirked upwards. “You bought me breakfast?”

“Yeah,” she says, twisting slightly back and forth in her chair. “You never eat breakfast and then you complain an hour into work that you’re hungry.”

He frowns. “But that’s so nice of you.” He sounds like he’s confused.

She gives him an expression of mock outrage. “I can be nice. When I want to.”

He narrows his eyes and studies her. “What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing!” she says, maybe a little too exuberantly. She leans back in her chair passively and sips her coffee. She’s doing nothing until half the cup is gone. At least.

“No,” Clay says, slowly, skeptically. “There’s something going on.” He’s studying her closely.

She rolls her eyes, but when she meets his gaze, she feels exposed, and so she glances away.

“Benson…” he says, with an overly conversational and suspicious tone to his voice. “Did you get _laid_ last night?”

She snorts over-dramatically. “What? Are you crazy?” Ooh, too much. She feels it right away.

His eyes widen. “Holy shit, you did!”

 _Goddamn it!_ She sighs.

He gives her a wide, awestruck grin. “You and Stabler finally hit the sheets!”

His voice is loud, and she glares at him. “Okay, okay, keep it down, you ass. Christ!” She glances around but the detectives on call aren’t in the office.

“How was it?” he demands, and he’s wearing a smirk that makes her want to laugh and kick him at the same time.

“It was fine,” she replies, automatically. _It was intense_ , she thinks. _It was 12 years of pent up emotion and it was overwhelming and scary and painful and good and it was way too much._

Clay gives her a disapproving look. “It was fine? You’ve been jonesing for this guy for, like, a decade and it was just fine?”

“I haven’t been _jonesing_ for Elliot for a decade. I told you, it was—“

“Complicated,” Clay finishes for her, interrupting. “Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.”

She shrugs and gives him a faint smile. She could tell him more, but she won’t. The night had hit both her and Elliot far too deeply to be shared with someone else. Clay is going to have to be content with the standard answer.

And he seems to know. He backs off then, and gives her a kinder smile. His eyes are still full of mischief and teasing, but he knows where the line is, and she loves that about him. “Well,” he says. “I admit it. I’m jealous.”

She rolls her eyes again and sips her coffee, and she looks into his blue eyes and smiles. His silver-tipped hair is a little chaotic today. The buzz cut has grown out just enough to stick up in tufts at the crown of his head. The lines in his cheeks bracketing his grin make his face even more handsome.

With Elliot in her bed, she can breathe more easily about Clay. And admit that he had been a firm possibility to her. That had Elliot still been married, she could have loved Clay in a different way. In a strong, distracting sort of way.

How strange then, that life chose this moment to throw him at her. The moment when she and Elliot finally collided.

“This calls for a celebration, you know,” Clay says. “I’m buying you a drink later.”

She groans and leans even further back in her chair, until the bearings squeak. “Oh god, is this what my life has become? Celebratory drinks after I’ve managed to have sex one weekend?”

“Yes,” Clay retorts, with a straight face. “You’re one of us, Benson. One of the poor, overworked, lonely, single souls. Play by the rules. Sex means you get a party.”

She laughs at that. “Well, then, I want lunch too.”

“Fine,” he says, grudgingly. “But we’re going for burgers. None of that Americanized generic Asian stuff that gives me heartburn.”

“Okay,” she says, cheerily. And she turns into the stack of files on her desk. When she glances up again, he’s working too, a faint, amused smile on his face, and she feels a warm rush of affection.

It feels like it did before, when they first started working together, and it’s a relief.

* * * * *

Elliot texts her when they’re knee-deep in their burgers and beer. He’s nearly done for the day and wants to hit the crib for a shower and then meet her at her apartment.

She isn’t past the stage yet where she feels a little tendril of heat each time she imagines him. She texts back that it’s okay, and finishes her lunch.

They’re eating late, it’s nearly 3, and she takes Clay’s good-natured ribbing with a smile. They go their separate ways afterwards, with a plan of action for Monday morning, and she takes a cab back to her apartment.

August is almost over now, and fall is approaching quickly, but the days are still hot and humid, the cicadas still trilling in the heat, and the trees are still lush and green. It’s a perfect Sunday afternoon, even as the sun starts dropping in the sky.

By 5 she’s showered and dressed casually, in her favorite track pants and a T-shirt. She walks barefoot around her apartment and picks up a bit. She rarely messes it up enough to warrant a serious effort.

Elliot knocks at 6, and when she opens the door, he smiles at her with that crooked smile he has. He’s wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt and he walks right in, hauling two plastic bags with him. She furrows her brow and watches as he marches into her kitchen and starts unloading groceries.

“What are you doing?”

He glances up at her with a wry look. “I bought you some food.” He’s pulling things out of the bags and piling them on her counter: bread, eggs, cheese, soup, cookies, orange juice.

She walks slowly toward him, staring at the pile of food growing on her counter. “Why?” she asks.

He glances at her again. “Because you don’t have any. Remember?”

She feels an uneasy twisting in her belly. A rush of panic. A desire to escape. “I told you that I didn’t need any.”

He shrugs. “I know. But if it’s here, maybe you’ll change your mind.”

She sees him then, as a father and a husband, making his kids breakfast, eating the dinner that Kathy made for him. It’s something she’s imagined him doing a hundred times, because it fit him. It fit his needs and her image and the whole idea of him as a family man.

 _It isn’t going to work_ , her mind tells her. _It never can, because you’re so different. He needs someone different._

“I’m not this person,” she says, hoarsely. Her heart is pounding.

He looks up again, confused now. “What?”

“This,” she says, gesturing at the food. “I’m not that person! I’m not like Kathy! I’m not the woman who goes grocery shopping every week and cooks meals and has everything ready when you come home! I’m not that person!”

He blinks at her, still now. “I know that, Olivia.”

“No,” she protests. “I don’t think you do. Because I told you I don’t need food here, and that I’m fine the way I am, but you bought me some anyway. Food that will just go bad now.”

“I…” he says, and he looks a little lost, a little angry.

“I’m not like your wife, Elliot!” she growls. “I never will be!”

“I don’t want you to be!” he finally replies, raising his voice to match hers.

“Then what is this?” she demands. “You _say_ that’s not what you want, but it’s what you had for 25 years. You’re just going to keep pushing and pushing and try to make me into that, and I’m just _not_!” She swallows. “I can’t!”

“It’s just _food_ , Olivia! Christ!” He glares at her. “You’re never going to let us be together, are you? Whenever I try to take a step forward you’re just going to sabotage the shit out of it, aren’t you?”

“I’m not the one sabotaging!” she finally yells, looking pointedly at the food.

“Screw it!” he yells back, his face flushing with his anger. “You want to drive me away? Fine. I’m gone!”

He starts toward the door and she says at his back, “I’m not who you think I am! Stop trying to change me.”

“You’re exactly who I think you are!” he flings back, and he slams the door behind him.

She seethes and paces in the aftermath, listening to his heavy steps as he thumps down the stairs and then out the main door.

So, it finally happened, she thinks. He finally left, like she knew he would all along.

 _Did he?_ her conscious pricks at her. _Or did you run him off?_

Does it matter?

“It’s just as well,” she says out loud. Too loud.

She looks at the food, lying on the counter and feels a stabbing pain in her gut. Something like panic. Something like… guilt. Something like regret and fear and then anger. But not at him.

At herself.

She sinks down on one of the counter stools and closes her eyes.

* * * * *

He strides with angry purpose down the street, toward his parked jeep. He must look a sight, because people swerve to avoid him.

The frustration and anger in his gut is churning and keeping him hopped up, and he is so _angry_. She will never change, he thinks. She is too wounded, and he’s too damaged, and they’ll just destroy each other. They’ll pummel each other into bits.

But in that anger there’s something else too.

It hurts.

Even as he takes a breath and tries to grab for the rage, because it’s easier, it _hurts_.

He does not want to leave her, and his feet slow, as if on their own, like he can’t bear to take even another step away from her.

Eventually he stops, there in the middle of the sidewalk. The people behind him swear and bump him, trying to dodge around.

 _Damn it, Olivia,_ he thinks. _Goddamn it._

He really can’t bear to take another step away, and he’s not ready to go back, and he looks around and then takes a seat on the big cement steps of a nearby walk-up. He rubs wearily at his forehead.

He finds his anger fading, giving way to insecurity and regret. He shouldn’t have blown up like that. He shouldn’t have let her sabotage things. He _knows_ her. He knows this is what she does, just like she knows he’ll act like a jealous ass at least once every other month, and she’ll have to slap him down and then forgive him.

This is what life will be between the two of them, and he _knows_ this. It will be him throwing a fit when she puts herself in danger, or when she’s spending too much time with her partner. It will be Olivia getting claustrophobic and freaking out over commitment.

It will be both of them knowing the other and working through it, because they can’t live without each other.

And if he can’t handle that, he has no business being with her at all.

He swallows and watches the early-evening traffic on the street. The sun has sunk behind some gray clouds and the twilight has become cooler. Maybe a little hint of the coming fall is in the air as well.

He looks back down the street toward Olivia’s apartment. His chest hurts.

He’d told her once, on steps just like these, that he was gun-shy. Or… she’d said it and he’d not argued. When they’d been only a few months out from Gitano and Oregon and trying to patch everything back up.

It had been true then, and it was true now. He wasn’t afraid of much in this world, but she made him tremble sometimes. Losing Olivia was a surefire way to break him.

He supposes in a way, she’s gun-shy too. How often has he used that dagger on her? The one where he tells her that if she had kids she’d understand him better. Or she’d think differently. Why wouldn’t she feel like she was lacking something in his eyes?

They’ve always been able to hurt each other with unerring accuracy. There are always bits of truth wrapped up in their arguments. They haven’t fought much over the past few years, and he wonders if they simply grew too tired or if they grew too good at it. They have a power over each other that staggers him sometimes. And if she ever truly decided to hate him, she could crush him. He thinks maybe they could both do that.

One more entanglement like Gitano, and they could both end up eating the business end of their service pistols.

It’s a frightening thought.

He realizes that she trusts him in a way she trusts few other men, if any, and he has the potential to seriously hurt her here. He has to ask himself what he really wants. If the choice was here, right in front of him, to take Olivia, with all her faults and her issues and her warm eyes and burning mouth, her good days and her bad, and marry her right now; take her off the market forever. Would he do it?

Or is Olivia an excuse? Does he want freedom from his entanglements and a future of something different?

And the ache in his chest is obvious. He wants Olivia.

He takes a few more deep breaths and then he stands up and walks back.

He knocks on her door again, and there is silence at first, and he fears that she won’t answer, or that maybe she headed out right after him, headed toward someone else to comfort her.

Crowder?

He doesn’t know who she talks to about him, when he’s the one she fights with.

But she answers.

She opens the door quietly, and she stands there, slightly subdued, and she meets his gaze.

“Hey,” he says, keeping his voice low. Calm. Contrite.

“Hey,” she says back.

“I’m not leaving,” he says quietly. “I’m not walking away, Liv. Let me in.”

She stares at him for a moment, chewing indecisively at her top lip, and then she steps back and he walks in. She closes the door behind him.

The food he bought is still out on the counter, and it feels like the scene of a crime, so he walks slowly into her kitchen and stands behind it, like he’s owning it.

She has her arms folded over her chest, so closed off, and she stands on the other side of the counter, watching him.

He looks at her. “I don’t want you to be like my ex-wife, Olivia,” he says softly.

She’s still chewing her lip and she says nothing, but she holds his gaze.

“If I wanted Kathy, I’d be with Kathy,” he continues. “I want you. I don’t want to change you.”

She swallows and glances away. “I don’t think you know what that really means, Elliot.”

“You think I don’t know you?” he asks, and he has to struggle a bit to keep his voice calm. “You think I want to turn you into some version of the perfect wife?”

“I…” she starts, brows furrowed, and then she shrugs, almost helplessly.

He watches her for a while, and his chest hasn’t stopped aching since he left. “We know how to do this, Liv,” he finally says. “We’ve been doing it for 12 years. We know how to compromise and we know how to give each other space.”

 _Endgame_ , he thinks. She doesn’t know how to play for the win, but he does. He’ll play for both of them.

She sighs then, and looks at the food on the counter and then at him. “I can’t imagine why you’d want to walk away from her, Elliot. From all of it.” She’s not accusing. She’s just a little lost. A little terrified.

“I know,” he says. “But I’m going to show you.”

She swallows again. Her posture loosens a bit. She is missing him already, from just that little spat, the same way he missed her, instantly. It makes him ache for her. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “The case has been frustrating, and it’s been so… strange, between you and I, and I guess I just… I’m really starting to realize we aren’t going to be partners anymore.”

He watches her, and she looks at him with dark, sad eyes, and he feels it then. That loss they will absorb if they continue down this path. He wants her as something more, and that doesn’t change, but she’s right. She is the best, closest partner he’s ever had. He _will_ have to work with someone else, every single day, from now on. He will have to send her off to work with someone else. There will be times when they spend more time with their new partners than with each other.

It is a trade-off, and it’s not going to be all sunshine and roses.

“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy,” he says. “But it’s got to be better, Liv. Cragen would have separated us eventually anyway. Every year it got harder to stay objective. You know that.”

They haven’t been objective in a very long time. Not concerning each other. Cragen has allowed a certain amount of that. He’s encouraged a certain amount as well. But they skate so close to that line that their days of partnership have been venturing into borrowed time. He knows this.

“It seems so easy for you,” she says, looking perplexed.

“Easy?” He snorts. “Are you kidding? I’ve had to fight to stay out of your business for years, Olivia. And now I have to send you off to Crowder everyday?” He gives a wordless, frustrated growl.

“I don’t know if I can _not_ be partners with you,” she says, resigned. “I don’t know if I even know how anymore.”

“You’re doing okay with it now,” he points out.

She gives him a faint smile. “Clay is great, but it’s not the same as you and I.”

“Jesus,” he says, glaring a bit. “I hope not.”

She smiles more then. “You don’t even know him, El. Why do you dislike him already?”

He shrugs as if it’s obvious. And, really, he feels like it is. “Because he gets you,” he admits. “He gets to have you everyday.”

She twists her mouth, wryly. “He’s actually a lot like you,” she says. “Maybe more easy-going and less intense, but I think you two would click if you tried.”

He rubs his hands absently over the counter and sighs. “I can try,” he says. “But he’s your partner, Olivia. At least for right now. That puts him between us, and I will never stop being uneasy about that.”

She doesn’t reply to that. She just looks at him and exhales slowly. He knows her well enough to know that means she’s accepted what he’s saying, regardless of whether she agrees or not.

There is a bag of cookies on the counter, Chips Ahoy, and he reaches out and opens the package, taking a cookie out and quickly eating it. “You know,” he says, with his mouth full. “I didn’t buy all this for you.”

She lifts one eyebrow. “Really?” she asks, dryly.

“No.” He swallows and takes another cookie. “For example. These cookies are mine. If I’m going to be over here from time to time, I need some sort of sustenance. I need to keep my strength up.”

“Yes,” she says, in that same dry tone. Her gaze runs over his biceps. “You’re so very weak. I can see that.”

He shrugs with a slight smirk and takes another bite. The cookie crunches as he chews.

She eyes him, her gaze dropping from his mouth to the bag. He takes another one.

When she reaches for the bag, he slides it out of her reach. “Forget it,” he says. “I told you they’re mine.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Really?” she demands, and the sarcasm is biting. “This is the childish game you’re going to play now?”

He puts his hand over the bag. “Buy your own,” he retorts, keeping a straight face, even as he sneaks a look at her.

She huffs out a slight laugh then, and shakes her head, smiling at him. “Elliot,” she says, in an overly-nice, normal voice. “Can I please have a cookie?”

He swallows and lifts his gaze to hers, looking directly at her. “Okay,” he says, and he nudges the bag toward her.

She takes a cookie, and slants him a glance that is almost shy, but definitely amused, and it makes him feel lighter again.

“I’m not promising that I’ll never freak out again,” she says, chewing the cookie.

He smiles faintly at that. “Christ,” he says. “You really would be the perfect wife if you could promise that.”

She gives him a mordant look.

He gives her a lopsided smile. “Hell, you know me, Liv. You know what I’m like. You think I’m somehow less of an asshole when you’re dating me?”

She laughs at that, and he considers it a victory. But she’s been privy to his personal life for years now, and she does know how difficult he can be. She’s told him herself, many, many times, how obtuse she thinks he’s being. How irritating. How frustrating.

He walks around the counter then, and she looks up as he invades her space and slides his arms around her waist. “I’ll try,” he says. “But we’re going to have to keep each other anchored.”

She nods at that, absently, looking pensive. But she puts her hands on his shoulders and the lost look is gone, and the fear, and he feels like they made it through something.

Something important.

“I’m going to go,” he says then. Softly.

She looks at him. “You don’t have to,” she says. “You could…stay.” And her voice drops a bit, her eyes are piercing, dark, limitless.

It makes him feel tight and hot and pleasantly turned-on. He hesitates, because he wants to stay. He wants her. But he’s promised Dickie that he could come over tonight and they’d watch the new action movie he’s dying to see. And he knows he can’t blow it off.

She sees his hesitation, and she puts a hand on the back of his neck, pulling his head down, and she puts her mouth on his and kisses him. Her lips are soft and warm and slow, and she brushes them against his with a sensuality that makes his head spin. “Stay,” she says.

He feels the jolt of electricity right to the tip of his half-hard cock.

He groans and tilts his forehead against hers.

“What?” she asks. “You have to get up early tomorrow?”

“Yes,” he says. “But that doesn’t matter. I’d stay up a week straight if it meant having sex with you, Liv.”

She smiles at that. “Yeah, I’m sure you’d be exquisite in bed after a week of no sleep.”

He kisses her back. “No,” he says. “I promised Dickie he could come over tonight.”

She sighs but she relaxes, and he knows she’d never urge him to blow off his own son in order to spend time with her. “Then I guess I’ll see you later.” She presses a kiss to his jaw, and drops away from him with a smile.

“Oh, you will,” he promises, taking a few steps toward the door to give them some distance. He opens it and then glances back. “I’m calling Attica tomorrow to set up our visit to Dunn. I’ll give you a call when it’s verified.”

She nods and sighs and leans back on her kitchen counter.

He smiles at her. Teasingly. “Don’t eat my cookies,” he orders.

She glances down with a smile and then back up again. “Well, if I do,” she says, quietly. “You can always just buy us more.”

 _Us_.

He smiles faintly, but he’s held by her dark, glittering gaze, and the pressure in his own chest. “And I will,” he says, softly. “However many you want.”

And then he turns and goes.

* * * * *

“I have to stop,” Olivia announces when they’re only an hour out of the city.

He gives her an incredulous look, and she shrugs. “I can’t help it!”

“You could help it,” he tells her. “If you didn’t drink a huge cup of tea the size of a Big Gulp before we left.”

“I really need to cut down,” she says, surprising him by agreeing.

He takes the next exit and stops at a MacDonald’s, and she jumps out and runs in while he waits with the engine running.

It’s another 5 or 6 hours to Attica prison, and he wants to get there with enough time to go over their maps before bed.

And the ‘bed’ part gets his blood jumping.

He hadn’t planned on the Attica trip happening so soon. It was only last weekend he and Olivia had spent the first night together. But when he’d called the warden to set up a time, he’d been told they were planning construction work on the wing Dunn resided in, and he was being moved temporarily. For security reasons, he’d be allowed no visitors over the next month. If they wanted to talk to him, they had to do it the very next weekend.

He’d hurriedly gotten the maps together and a box-full of files they might need, and he and Olivia had both taken Friday off and left mid-morning, deciding to drive there and stay over night before visiting Dunn first thing Saturday morning.

He taps his fingers on the steering wheel while he waits, watching people work their way through the drive-up window and get their food.

There is something, too, about going away with Olivia for the night. For business, yes, although it’s on their own time, but it’s also being away from the city and all the people in the city who know them. It’s something… freeing.

He’d briefly considered asking Huang if he wanted to come. Huang had given them a rundown on behavior rules and different strategies he’d thought would work on Dunn, and it might have been useful to have him along. But now that he and Olivia have started sleeping together, George is also the one person who would easily see that.

Elliot is pretty sure that George had long ago started seeing through both his and Olivia’s feelings for each other, but he doesn’t want to spend the next few weeks discussing how he feels about it or what it all means.

It means he loves her. End of story. What else is there to know?

She walks back out of the restaurant holding two cups, and he stares pointedly at her as she climbs back into the car.

“What?” she demands, handing him a cup of orange juice. “It’s not like you aren’t going to demand we stop for lunch in an hour anyway.”

He shakes his head, but the orange juice does look good, and he takes it with a crooked smile. She sips her tea and tries to look innocent.

He hands her his notebook as he merges back onto the highway. “George wrote some suggestions for us.”

She sets her tea in the cup holder in the center console and takes the notebook, flipping through it until she gets to the Dunn case. “Okay,” she says, reading. “‘Dress up to show importance.’” She glances in the back where he has a suit hanging. “Check.” She looks back at the notebook. “‘Elliot talk and Olivia stay deferential and invisible.’” She glances at him and he grins as she rolls her eyes. “Well,” she says, dryly. “Isn’t that a surprise.”

“You should be a pro at that by now,” he teases.

“I’d have a complex by now if I didn’t get the satisfaction of seeing the perp’s surprised, beaten face when I drop the act and pin his ass to the wall.”

He laughs a little smugly at that, and feels a wave of affection as he glances at her. He loves her toughness. Loves seeing that same expression on those perps’ faces when they realize she isn’t afraid of them and she’s just outsmarted them.

“‘Pretend disorganization,’” she continues reading. “‘Spread maps haphazardly.’” She looks up. “He thinks we’re idiots and he’s smarter than we are, so we’re playing to that.”

Elliot nods, absently. It grates him to do that. He’s grown immune to most of the insults suspects hurl at them over the years. He’s even learned to calm his over-protective streak toward Olivia. But barbs about his intelligence still bug him. He’s not sure why, but they create a hot streak up his spine until he feels anger unfurling in a wave through his mind.

Kathy had always told him it was because he was fighting a stereotype. He’s always been muscled and athletic, always had that borough accent. Nobody took him seriously until he got in their face. Plus, she’d said, he has a little bit of that ‘manly ego’ thing going on.

Maybe she’s right.

“‘Dismiss questions about maps,’” Olivia reads. She looks at him. “Do we want him to think we don’t care about Mary’s body, or that the discovery is imminent, with or without his help?”

Elliot thinks about that for a moment. “I think we need to act like it’s a done deal. Only a matter of time, because we have new information.”

The ‘new information’ was the tidbit designed to get Dunn to agree to see them in the first place. They don’t really have anything, but hopefully, with the lure of the maps, Dunn won’t care what they’re actually talking about, because he’ll be too distracted by them.

“What if he we get there and he doesn’t agree to see us?” Olivia asks, quietly. “He has an appeal coming up. His lawyer will probably advise against it.”

Elliot shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess it fails then. I don’t think he’ll refuse though. He’s been in the joint long enough to get a good taste of the life and hate it. He’s got nearly the entirety of his whole sentence stretched out before him, and his only hope is that appeal coming up. He hasn’t been doing the dance long enough to know that the appeal will likely go nowhere, so he probably feels pretty miserable and pretty confident at the same time. He’s going to want to know what we have, so he can change his statement if he needs to.”

Olivia makes a wordless sound of agreement and watches the road in front of them as they drive. “And he still thinks he’s smarter than we are. He’ll figure he can talk his way around us if need be, and get himself out of trouble.”

“Yeah,” Elliot says. “I think so.”

She looks at him then, and when he glances at her, she’s staring at him with something like admiration. “This is an incredibly smart plan, El. Seriously.”

He feels a flush of embarrassment and heat in his neck and face. He snorts dismissively. “Wait until it actually works before you sing my praises too loudly.”

She smiles at that, and looks away, but he still feels warm and ridiculously pleased that she’s so proud of him. If anyone else had expressed amazement, he’d have been insulted. The ‘stupid’ thing again. Like he’s not capable of creative thinking. But Olivia knows him, and her praise is genuine and rare and never condescending. She expects him to be smart and tough and do his job. She might play down his faults from time to time in order to make him feel better when things go badly, but she’d never patronize him.

“It’d be good to find Mary,” she says, softly. “Even if we couldn’t save her.”

* * * * *

They pull into the hotel parking lot around 4, and he runs in to check them in while Olivia stretches her legs and walks around a little green area in front of the lobby. She’s talking on her cell phone when he walks out again, and she hangs up when she sees him.

He feels a niggling bit of jealousy, wondering if she was talking to Crowder, and then gives himself an internal head slap. It doesn’t matter. Crowder is her partner right now. She’s allowed a relationship with him.

Elliot is something different. Something better. He has to let that be enough.

“Take your pick,” he says, handing her two key cards in little paper envelopes. He climbs back in the car to drive around to their rooms, and she slips in next to him.

“You got two rooms,” she says, a little surprised.

He looks at her. She looks back, and when their eyes meet, he feels a slow suffusion of warmth and arousal. He didn’t want to get two rooms, but he’d felt it was only polite. Regardless of their last Saturday night.

“I, uh…” he starts, and his voice is thick, so he clears his throat. “I want you to stay with me, Liv,” he says, truthfully, holding her gaze. “But I didn’t want to make assumptions.” He twists one corner of his mouth upwards. “Or… bet on the fact that I wouldn’t piss you off on a six-hour car ride.”

She gives him a slow smile and laughs at the end of it. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s just see how it goes, okay?”

The theme of their lives lately…

“Okay,” he says, and he drives them around until he sees the door the clerk told him to find.

He parks and they haul their bags and the case files up to one of the rooms. He’s distracted and hopeful when she tosses both keys on the table of the first room and doesn’t remark when he sets his own bag down and closes the door.

She hops on one of the beds and stretches out, groaning, and he has to look away. His memories of the way she felt, smelled, looked, as he bent down over her, both of them naked in her bed, swing way too close.

“I’m going to call the warden,” he says, taking his cell out and stepping outside of the room for a moment of air.

The warden confirms their visit and tells him to show up at nine sharp the next morning. They’ll be allowed to talk to the prison psychiatrist if they want, but are advised to see Dunn as soon as possible. The longer he sweats, the more likely he’ll refuse the visit.

Elliot agrees and tells him they’ll be there, and then steps back into the room.

Olivia has their files spread out on the little table in front of the window and over half of the nearest bed, and she glances up as he sits down across from her. “I think we still have work to do on these maps,” she says.

He’s done some preliminary work on the maps: writing the location names on a few of them in big block letters for easy reading by Dunn, and then writing a few messy notes in cursive around the borders. They are real words, but nearly impossible to decipher. He wants Dunn straining to see what they say.

“So,” Olivia says, thumbing through them one by one. “Jenny Jump State Park and Great Swamp, but what are these two?” She holds up two smaller maps, printed by the county clerks of New Jersey.

“One is John Walker’s farm, the other is a piece of public hunting land he had mapped out in the glove compartment of his truck.”

She furrows her brows then. “I thought we’d decided Walker’s farm was eliminated?”

He shrugs. “I just want to be sure. I don’t think she’s there, but something is bugging me about that place and I don’t know what. It seemed as good an idea as anything for filler.”

She nods, absently, and he pulls out a selection of felt-tip pens and pencils and they start writing on the maps with messy notes and circles and tiny symbols.

Olivia writes ‘JOHN WALKER FARM’ across the top of one, and he looks at it, and then circles the rough area where the tree stand is and adds a few indecipherable words. Olivia adds an X off to the side and writes something that looks oddly like the word ‘witness’ when you simply glance at it, but it isn’t quite clear.

He grins at her. “Nice.”

She grins back, and they work quietly for a while.

It isn’t until his stomach is growling that he realizes they’ve worked until nearly sunset. The sun is low in the sky, and orange, and he puts his pen down and leans back in his chair and stretches. “We should go get something to eat, “he suggests.

She yawns and agrees, and the hotel has a restaurant, so they head down.

They end up eating sandwiches at the bar and then staying for a drink, and she glances around at the people surrounding them and says, “I think half of these people are cops.”

He smirks and agrees. The hotel was recommended by the warden, and it’s clear that most of the lodgers are attorneys and cops. A few families who might be there to visit the prison.

The bartender sets two fresh drinks in front of them, and Elliot sips the scotch, feeling pleasantly warm. He’s both worried and eager for the interview with Dunn tomorrow, and he’s achingly aware of Olivia sitting next to him.

“How’re the kids?” she asks, conversationally. And she always gets a little softer when she’s talking about his kids.

“Good,” he says. He turns toward her on his bar stool and rests his arm along the back of her chair. “We take Liz to Boston next weekend, Dickie keeps insisting he can go to NYU by himself.”

She smiles, wistfully. “I can’t believe they’re in college now.”

He sighs over-dramatically. “Me either.” And he takes a drink. “One more week and then Kathy and I are relegated to the occasional weekend visit. They don’t need us anymore.”

Olivia gives him a wry smile. “They’ll always need you, El. In some way.”

He smiles faintly in return. “Yeah, but it’ll never be like it was. And that’s a good thing. It means we did something right.”

Olivia smiles wider. “Of course you did.”

She’s always been his biggest reassurance when it came to parenting. He knows that some of her view is idealized, and it’s not hard to be a better parent than most of the people they see everyday. But it’s still been something that’s buoyed him over the years.

“You still think about adopting?” he asks, very softly. He doesn’t want to bring up something that’s painful for her, but he wants to know. And he wants her to share this with him.

She tilts her glass, watching the amber liquid swirl, and says, “Yeah, sometimes.” In a low voice.

He realizes there is a whole conversation here that may or may not ever need to be had. About kids and expectations and their future. He’s not sure he wants to have it now though. Nor that he has much of a say in anything she wants in that area. There are things he could point out, like the timing now, and how, if they can’t be partners anymore, then maybe she could move to another, safer, more kid-friendly area of the department.

But she looks at him then, and he sees all of that in her eyes. She has thought about all of that, and has been for a long time. Of course she has. He realizes how ignorant it was to think she hadn’t. That maybe she needed him to point it out as if she hadn’t had any idea…

“I think I’m getting into something where I don’t belong,” he confesses.

She smiles at that, glancing down, and there’s a little shyness there and a little amusement and a lot of beauty that takes his breath away. “It’s alright,” she murmurs. “You’re the only one I’ve ever told over the years anyway.”

His throat is suddenly a little dry at that. Her faith in him has always stirred his emotion.

“Maybe you should…” he starts.

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I think maybe I’m where I’m supposed to be already.” She rests her head in her palm, elbow on the bar, and looks at him. “Someone needs to fight for them when no one else can.”

He holds her gaze and feels the weight of her words. She’s right. And there’s a cost to that fight. One he knows well. He only got away with it because he’d had Kathy, and even then they’d clearly paid dearly for it. His kids have not escaped his own fight scar-free. There is collateral damage.

So he doesn’t say anything to her words. He just holds her gaze and agrees silently and knows that they are thinking the same things.

“You wanna get out of here?” she asks then, quietly.

He looks at her, and his heartbeat picks up. Their intimate talk has made him feel close to her, and the soft, throaty sound of her voice brings back a heat in his skin. “Yeah,” he says, roughly.

They leave their drinks on the bar.

* * * * *

“I want you to stay with me tonight,” he says, roughly, pressing her back against their room door. They are still outside and there is no one in the hallway, and he puts his mouth close to hers.

She breathes for a moment, the warm air flowing across his lips. “Okay.”

He kisses her, but with light, short, slow kisses.

She inhales and swallows as he uses the key card and opens the door.

Inside, he flips the bolt and turns the main lamp on. Olivia is toeing her shoes off and walking toward the window. The hotel is on the edge of town, in the darkness of fields. The lights of distant cars on the highway move in the distance.

She shuts the blinds and then turns the lamp to its dimmest setting.

His mouth runs dry.

When she comes back to him, he puts his arms around her and then puts his mouth on hers, and everything else in his mind falls away. All he can think about is how she smells and how she feels and how she makes him feel.

“S’been a long day,” she says, softly. “Too long in the car.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, but his voice sounds shaky. “I should hit the shower quickly.”

He starts to back away from her, and she grabs him by the front of his shirt. He pauses. She pulls him back and her fingers start on the shirt buttons. “We should both hit the shower,” she counters.

And that really pretty much does it for him. He’s done.

He pulls her head to his and swallows her mouth, and then he grabs her around the waist and hauls her up against him, and then he backs them into the bathroom while she starts on his belt and then his jeans.

In the darkness of her room, the week before, he’d felt her but not seen as much of her as he’d wanted to. He’d seen the glow of her skin in the lights coming in through the blinds, but not enough.

He starts the shower and strips the rest of the way off, and she undresses slowly, but without any sort of seductive teasing, which he likes. That’s not Olivia to him, and he gets into the spray rather than standing and staring at her.

When she gets in behind him, he turns, and seeing her naked is both exciting and oddly familiar. He’s known her for so long and imagined the curves of her body so often that he’s not off by much. He’s been inside of her already, and had his mouth on her breasts and it’s not a nerve-wracking thing. It’s simply comfortable and highly arousing.

He grabs her by the arms and turns them around, until she’s in the water. She tilts her head back into the spray, and he likes the image. The water running over her, and the way she looks vulnerable with her hair wet and smooth and close against her neck. He puts his hands on her shoulders and runs them down her back, stepping closer, just wanting to feel her against him.

She pulls his head into the spray with hers and kisses him while the water hits the back of his head and neck and runs down his back. He gets hard quickly.

Her hand runs down over his ass, lingering there for a moment, and it makes him feel impatient. He turns her into the wall and leans into her, putting his mouth against the side of her neck and sucking gently at her skin.

“I’d take you against this wall right now,” he says, his voice sounding like gravel, “if I wasn’t afraid of slipping and breaking both our necks.”

Her hands curl against his shoulder blades and her laugh is soft in his ear. “You getting old, Stabler?”

He lets a disgruntled sound rumble in his chest, and it sounds like a growl, even to his own ears. “Do I feel old?” he demands, and he presses himself right up against her so she can feel how hard he is.

“No,” she says, a little breathlessly, and her hands drop to his lower back and pull him tighter against her. “You definitely don’t feel old.”

He kisses along her jaw line. “I’d rather just get in bed and take my time,” he says.

She exhales slowly, affected, and it makes him feel strong. It’s this. This. This is what he’d imagined when he’d imagined her at all. When he’d been half in a dream late at night and her smell had still been on him from a stakeout. When he’d allowed himself the fantasy of wondering what she’d be like. It had been like this.

This slow, determined seduction where she’s naked and wet and pressed against him, and her breath is hard and her hands grasp at him and he can spend his moments putting his mouth all over her.

This.

He kisses her slowly and gets deep and then he backs off as she looks at him with half-closed eyes. He takes the soap in his hands and the slippery smoothness of it as he runs his hands over her body is incredible. She does the same for him, and by the end of it, he has to turn the heat of the water down or risk passing out from the intensity of it all.

He towels off around an aching hard-on and Olivia is next to him and leaning over the sink to wipe at the steam on the mirror so she comb her hair back. When he opens the bathroom door, the cold air rushes in and relaxes him a little.

A little.

With Olivia standing at the sink, he puts an arm around her from behind and pushes her wet hair out of the way and kisses the back of her neck. She leans back against him, and he has to prevent himself from bending her over and sliding inside of her right there.

It’s going to take a while, he thinks, before this all becomes commonplace. Before they can have sex without it being something so exciting. So urgent.

He turns her around and puts his mouth on hers and walks her out into the main room, only losing the kiss when her legs hit the bed and she falls down, sliding on top of the mattress. He follows immediately, crawling over the top of her, settling his hips between her legs.

It could be over quickly. He could go fast. He just has to tilt his hips a bit, get inside her and lose himself. The idea _does_ pull at him. She’s hard to resist.

But he takes a breath and slides his mouth to her throat and then he listens to her gasp and moan while he works his way down. He spends time on her breasts, using his mouth, his tongue, his breath, until she’s pushing up against him and her fingernails are digging painfully into his arms.

He slides his fingers inside of her and watches her face, and she tilts her head back and closes her eyes and bites her lip, and he almost loses it. She’s wet and getting wetter, and he’s hard enough to hurt.

He presses his hand into the mattress, gets up on his knees to lead himself into her, and she sits up, moving away, even as she grabs his head and she kisses him. Then she pushes him over and climbs on top of him, and he just surrenders. He wants whatever she wants, and he lies back and gives her control over everything.

She keeps kissing him and she runs her hands all over him, everywhere she can reach, and when he groans, she lifts her hips up and wraps her hand around his cock, and then she slips back down around him and he sinks into her.

He disintegrates.

All he feels is the tight, wet warmth around his cock and the smooth, teasing touch of her hands on his belly and chest, and he can’t even think. He curls his fingers into her thighs and thrusts his hips up into her, and he has to fight to keep his eyes open, to keep watching her, and the pleasure ripples through his muscles and up his spine and pools between his legs until he’s out of breath and skating along that thin, sharp edge of coming.

“Christ, Liv,” he whispers. Because he can’t _not_ say her name.

She moves on him slowly and the heat winds up inside of him, and he runs his hands up over her breasts and then back down between her legs, and she leans forward with a gasp when he hits the right place, trapping his hand there between their bodies, and she falters and moves and her breath gets harder.

And then she comes, and he feels it, as she tightens around him and she shudders and her breath hits his shoulder hotly. It’s too much, and he grabs her hip with one hand, keeps her moving as he pushes up, and then he’s coming too, in long, sharp jets, and it feels so good he almost stops breathing.

He holds her down, tightly covering him, as it all starts to ebb. He’s still throbbing inside of her, but he’s sensitive, and he just wants to feel her there, warm and soft.

She rests against him, slowly relaxing, and he feels his lungs catching air again. He loosens.

“Jesus…” he breathes, nearly inaudibly, and he finally relaxes into the mattress.

Olivia exhales slowly into his skin and goes to slide off of him, and he catches her with his arms, pulling her back on top of him and running his palms over her back. “No,” he says, and it’s the extent of his conversational skills at that point.

She relaxes back onto him, and he closes his eyes, running his hands along her sides drowsily. He knows she finds the transition from partners to lovers strange, and right now he feels it too. Strange to have the strongest woman he’s ever known lying on top of him, lax and spent. Strange to be able to touch her in any way he wants.

But also, exciting. Satisfying. Intimate.

His heart slows and his skin cools, and it becomes comfortable in a way that makes him drowsy. His mind though, is not at rest, and he still feels the fear of their fight earlier in the week.

Their date broke open a vein of honesty he didn’t realize he had. After a time, he feels it stirring again.

“Liv,” he says, quietly, and he slides one hand up to the back of her neck. She’s warm there, and the sweat is still drying, and he can feel the wispy, soft hairs that don’t show. “You thought I wanted you to be someone else, that I didn’t know you. But you’re wrong.”

She doesn’t answer him right away. He feels her fingers still on his shoulder, where they’d been scratching gently back and forth. “I know,” she says.

“You don’t know who I am though,” he continues. “Not completely.”

She is silent, and still, and he feels her breath against his bare chest.

“I would have had an affair with you,” he confesses, his voice barely above a whisper. “If you’d have let me. All you’d have had to do was push a little.”

He hears the thick sound of saliva in her throat as she swallows, and she rests her lips against his clavicle. “Well,” she says after a while. “Maybe that’s why I never pushed then.”

“I always felt like you thought I was this great family man, and I… wasn’t. I was never home and I never talked about anything and in the back of my mind I always wanted something… else.”

She sighs, quietly. “Elliot,” she says, softly. “You did what you felt was right, and you loved them. That’s what I idealized. The way you struggled with all of it, but you still made sure the family stayed together. Even when it wasn’t what you wanted.”

He thinks about that for a few moments. “You made me fight even when I didn’t want to. You always made me feel like a better man.”

She does slide off of him then and she lies on her stomach next to him and meets his gaze. “You are a better man,” she says. She pauses. “It would have ruined us to have an affair.”

He nods slowly, turning his gaze to the shadows on the ceiling. She’s right. The guilt would have eventually eaten him alive. Her too. There’d have been no saving them. “We did the right thing,” he says, sliding his hand down her back and pulling her close to him. He presses his lips briefly to the top of her head. “And we still are.”

She doesn’t answer him, but she puts her arms around him and she fits herself to his side and she holds him.

And that’s more than enough to let him sleep.

* * * * * *

The sudden sharp beeping of the hotel’s alarm clock startles her awake.

She opens her eyes to a dark room, morning light around the frame of the window where the thick curtains don’t reach.

Next to her, Elliot grunts and rolls over toward the table between the beds, and she hears him fumble with the alarm clock, trying to figure out how to turn it off.

The beeping cuts off just as suddenly as it started, and he collapses again, onto his back, throwing an arm up over his eyes.

In the darkness, she could easily fall back asleep.

She almost does.

He turns toward her in the darkness though and she feels his arm slide over her waist. He doesn’t say anything, he moves closer until she’s lying in his warmth and he’s half draped over her in a way that feels almost extravagant.

“We need to get up,” she says in a throaty voice.

“Mmmm,” he says, and it’s really just a rough sound in his throat.

Her body is still tired, still a little wiped out from the night before, and she can still feel him between her legs. It had been a while, before him, and the intensity of their sex has left her achy.

She didn’t get enough sleep.

Although they’d gone to bed early, it had been hours before they’d slept. And then, again, only two hours before the alarm, she’d awoke with him spooned up behind her, his hands stroking over her sides, his cock already hard.

When he’d known she was awake and she hadn’t protested, he’d put his mouth on the back of her neck, and his hands had found her breasts, and she hadn’t really been able to think much after that. She’d just felt.

She’d just given in to the heat radiating out through her body and his silent strength. He’d pulled her over onto her back and slid on top of her, and she’d felt his need the same way she’d felt her own only a few hours before.

She’d pushed him over earlier in the night and got on top because she’d needed to control the situation. It hadn’t been as mind-bending and surprising as the first time, but the intensity had still been a little overwhelming. A little too much. She’d controlled it the only way she knew how, and he’d given in to her.

He needed the same thing later maybe, and he’d moved her body with his hands, spread her legs, fit himself between them, pushed himself inside. She’d inhaled sharply and tilted her head back and rested her hands over her head, fingers digging into her pillow.

He’d rocked back and forth and breathed harder and faster, and when she’d looked up at him, his face had been covered by darkness.

He’d come first, groans tingeing his breaths, his body hard against hers, and she’d come just a few moments later, as he’d pressed her down and ground against her a bit.

They hadn’t talked at all. He’d eventually slid to the side and fallen asleep with his head so close to her neck that she could feel his breath. She’d been too tired to get up and hit the bathroom even, and she’d drifted off soon after.

She opens her eyes and pushes herself up a bit, glancing at the clock again. It’s quarter after 6. They’d set the alarm for 6 to make sure they had plenty of time before they went to Attica prison.

Elliot is still collapsed like the dead beside her.

“I’m taking a shower,” she says. “You’ve got about 10 minutes to snooze.”

He grunts.

She gets up and heads into the bathroom and runs the shower. Her hair is sticking up in all the wrong places after hitting the sheets when it was wet the night before. She makes a face and steps into the spray.

It’s warm and invigorating, and she feels a little regret washing Elliot off of her skin. Then she rolls her eyes at such a sentimental thought. It’s _Elliot_ for God’s sake.

When she gets out, she wraps a towel around her torso and wanders back into the room. It’s still dark, and she can hear Elliot snoring lightly.

She grins. She walks over and shoves the curtains open, letting the sunrise in, and he jerks awake and moves his forearm over his eyes. She walks to the bed and climbs over him, straddling his hips and sitting down. “Elliot, wake up.”

His arm lifts and he eyes her sullenly. “I need coffee.”

“Well, get up and get in the shower. I’ll order some. We need to go over all the files one last time before we go.”

He gives her a faint smile and his gaze drops and then the smile turns to heat and a smirk. He brings his hands up and runs them over her sides, and the towel. “Maybe it’s not coffee I need…”

She smirks right back and grabs his hands, pushing them down to the mattress and holding them there. “Maybe later…”

His gaze is piercing and hot and he gives her a slow smile that makes her painfully aware of the warmth between them. It makes her feel a little shy too, and she smiles and glances away and says, “Get up.” Again. “This is our best shot at Dunn. We can’t screw it up.”

That sobers him. A lot.

“Okay,” he says, and she slides off of him, and he gets up.

She orders coffee and bagels while he’s in the shower, and then she gets dressed and sits down with their ‘display’ file. She spreads the maps out like she imagines Elliot will do when they’re in front of Dunn, and she leans back and looks at them.

They’re good. She can see plainly which map is which by title, but the notes and circles written over them are much harder to decipher. Elliot had gone through and creased and crumpled many of them so they looked well-used, and she’d deliberately put coffee rings on two of them.

They looked good.

They might actually work.

* * * * *

Nick Dunn sits across from them. On the other side of a wide metal table in a private prison visiting room that is used for attorney briefings. He leans back in his chair and his face is carefully neutral, but he is squirming inside.

She can see it.

Elliot sits in one of his good black suits right at the center of the table. She sits off to the side, holding their stack of files, like she’s his secretary or something. Dunn rarely glances at her.

He stares at Elliot and watches as Elliot opens their big file and thumbs through it. “We’ve collected some new information, Nick,” Elliot says. “And we need to make sure we have your original statement correct.”

“My attorney says I shouldn’t talk to you,” Nick states.

But his eyes are dropping to that file, once, twice, three times, more…

He’s nervous. He doesn’t just want to know what they’ve found. He _needs_ to know.

“Uh huh,” Elliot says. He looks up and smiles at Nick. “Well, it’s not like we can convict you twice, right?”

Dunn stares at him and shrugs. The warden told them that Dunn is having problems in prison. His silent act isn’t ignored by the other prisoners. It’s seen as arrogance and refusing to play to the prison hierarchy. It’s not working for him.

He wants out, and his desperation is going to work for them.

Elliot acts like he can’t find the paper he’s looking for, and he gives a heavy sigh and glances at her, annoyed, and then starts throwing papers out of the file, like he’s fed up.

“It’s in there,” she says, putting a note of apology in her voice. “I saw it this morning, Detective. I swear.”

He doesn’t look at her, but there’s a heavy air of irritation about him. He tosses the maps out on the table one by one, letting them overlap, but spread out slightly so Dunn can see them. He manages to push them around and spread them out further by shoving other papers into them.

Dunn stares at the maps. Olivia watches his eyes tick along the titles, reading the names.

“My stupid wife ran off, I told you,” Dunn says. “If she’s dead, I have no idea where her body is.”

Elliot is preoccupied with the file, and he glances up in confusion at Dunn and then glances down at the maps. “Oh,” he says, dismissively. “No. Don’t worry about that. We don’t need your help on that. We’re doing fine on our own.”

Dunn’s gaze flickers to Elliot’s face, and Olivia sees something pass over his eyes. Maybe surprise? His posture is rigid.

He glances back at the maps. His eyes strain to see the small print. He struggles to take them all in.

“Okay,” Elliot says, pulling out a photocopy of a lab report for a closed case. “So, what was your explanation for the blood found in Mary’s vehicle again?”

Dunn doesn’t answer. He’s staring at the maps.

“Nick?” Elliot tilts his head and looks at him, questioningly.

Dunn’s gaze jerks back up to Elliot. “What?”

“Mary’s blood and your footprint in her vehicle? You said she cut herself?”

“Yes. I’ve got nothing to say on that. You can read my old statements.”

Elliot stares at him. “Okay.”

And it goes like that. Elliot asking old questions and Dunn not answering, but Dunn never calls an end to the interview, nor does he get annoyed. He answers and then his eyes drop to the maps again, and occasionally he glances up at her to see if she’s watching, so she tries to pretend she’s taking notes while she watches him peripherally.

Time after time, his gaze strays to the Walker Farm map. He looks at the others too, but only quick flashes. When he looks at the Walker map, his gaze turns to piercing intensity, his eyes straining at the words.

 _Oh, you asshole_ , she thinks. _Got you, don’t we?_

To test, she pretends to dig through the files in her lap and she sets them up on top of the table, on top of the Walker map, blocking his view.

He immediately grows agitated, blowing up at Elliot’s next question. “What, are you guys stupid? Just go back and read my original statements. They haven’t changed. I’m like two minutes away from kicking you out of here!”

She picks the file up again, and Dunn quickly glances at the map underneath. Then away.

“Yeah, maybe we have all we’re going to get out of you,” Elliot agrees, starting to slide papers back into the file.

And then.

“Maybe you should let me look at those maps,” Dunn offers, his tone suddenly friendly and almost overly casual. “Maybe I could help you out. I might see something that will tell you where she ran to. She liked to hike a lot. I could show you where.”

Well now.

Mary’s entire family had told them how much Mary had hated hiking. Or any sort of outdoors recreation that didn’t involve nearby civilization and quick access to food and bathrooms.

“Ahhh,” Elliot says, glancing at the maps, pretending indecision. “No, that’s okay, Nick. I think we got what we wanted. Like I said, we’re okay on that front. Thanks.”

Nick glares at them as they pick up and motion to the guard that they’re finished.

They head out to thank the warden and pick up their belongings and sign out, and they manage to get into the parking lot before Elliot glances at her and says, “You don’t even need to tell me what you saw. He couldn’t keep his eyes off that damn map.”

“That was amazing,” she says. “You played it perfectly, El.”

He gives her a grim smile. “I hope it pays off.”

“I’m surprised,” she says then. “I still feel like the Walker farm is the wrong choice.”

He chews at his lip a bit as they slide into his jeep. “Me too. I still feel like it’s wrong.” He glances at her. “But something made him nervous about that site, and we have to find out what.”

She nods absently as she pulls her seatbelt on and watches the prison fade into the distance as they drive away.

 _Mary_ , she thinks. _We’re coming to find you. I promise._

* * * * *


	17. Gravity

* * * * *

 

Elliot stands in the middle of John Walker’s farm meadow and watches the search.

In the two weeks since they’d gone to see Nick Dunn in prison, too much has happened. He has to take a moment to feel himself actually here. Live cases take precedence over those that are considered closed, and it’s taken this long to get the cadaver dogs scheduled. And the manpower to do a proper search.

He’d been eager to get started, but the delay had been a blessing in disguise. The weekend after Dunn, he and Kathy had taken Elizabeth to college in Boston and left her there, in her dorm, to start her new life.

He’d been stoic about it. Liz had always been an ambitious kid, involved in everything. She’d been home almost less than he had the past few years. But still, she’s his little girl. He still saw all of them in his memory as little kids. Baby fat and missing teeth and smiles when he came home at night.

Kathy had given him a knowing smile when he’d cleared his throat roughly as Lizzie had waved from the curb, all moved in and ready to live on her own. They’d talked on the way home in a friendly way, more relaxed, and it had set him at ease.

But he’d been listless once he’d dropped Kathy off and gone home. And he’d only wanted one person then.

Olivia had answered her door, taken one look at him, and she’d laughed, but in a kind way. “She’ll be fine, El,” she’d said to him, and she’d pulled him through the door. And then she’d made him forget. With a wet mouth and warm breath and steady fingers.

He’d talked after that, and she’d listened, and eventually they’d slept, and he hadn’t left the entire weekend.

He sighs, and walks through the tall grass toward the deer stand on the edge of the meadow. Walker had told them that Dunn built it shortly before Mary went missing, and that troubles Elliot. Mary went missing in late winter, long past the hunting season. What a strange time to build a deer stand…

He climbs up into the stand and there’s a rough seat build out of a plank so the hunter can sit, with his feet on the main platform. There are wooden rails built around it, either for steadying a gun or simple safety. He sits in the seat and just watches the world around him.

It’s mid-September, and the weather is still warm and balmy, at least for the day. The warm stretches get shorter and shorter and at night there’s a coolness to the air that is starting to turn the leaves brown.

In the distance he can see the junkyard where Walker’s trailers are marooned, and beyond that is the house itself. Across this short meadow in front of the stand, Olivia is on the path talking to a deputy sheriff. She nods along with his words and laughs with a beautiful smile, and he feels something clench in his chest. Pride in her, jealousy, and that tug he always feels when she’s around. That he belongs with her.

They’d met the deputy this morning, and Elliot had watched the man watch Olivia, and it had gotten him ramped up a little bit. The guy had almost been enthralled by her. He’s good-looking too, in that former Marine sort of way, with muscles and a high-and-tight haircut and a reserved bearing.

Elliot watches them now, and while Olivia smiles at the deputy and laughs, she keeps herself apart from him. She is friendly but closed off in a certain way, and it makes Elliot feel crazy in love with her. The deputy isn’t a creep. He senses that she’s not interested and he doesn’t push it. Doesn’t stare. He lets her walk away and he casts a wistful glance before turning, but he does turn.

And Elliot relaxes.

Olivia walks along the path and sees him up in the stand. She smiles at him, and he smiles back, and then he lifts a hand and taps his forehead. _I’m getting into his mind_ , he says telepathically.

She nods, as if she heard him. And she did, really. Because they’ve been partners so long that they work the same now.

She’s got a long stick and she joins the crew in the meadow below, turning over logs and testing the soil for loose areas.

He leans back in the seat and scans the farm.

There are search crews everywhere, and nothing has been found yet, despite Dunn’s obvious distress over this place. And still… he feels like he wasn’t wrong. This is not the place Dunn would have hidden Mary. He feels it.

He twists in the seat and looks behind him. There are only woods, and through the trees he can see a dog running along a game trail, men following. He frowns.

The railing of the stand indicates clearly that the front of the stand faces the meadow. Yet the game trail is behind…

He studies the meadow. It’s small and full of brushy groundcover. The junkyard meadow, more distant, has leftover corn stalks and tall grasses growing in abundance, and seems so much more logical…

“What were you doing, Dunn?” Elliot mutters to himself. “You were doing something…”

He leans back in the seat again and just relaxes, trying to find the position most comfortable, most natural, to the stand. Then he simply looks forward.

There is a gap in the trees and he can see through to a hill in the distance. It’s wooded and there are rocky bluffs along the top. He stares at it. It’s a perfect view. With the height of the tree stand and the gap in the trees…

He pauses.

Then he leans forward and looks harder.

He thumbs his radio. “Liv.”

She stands up in the meadow below and reaches for her pocket. “Here.”

“Anybody have some binoculars down there?”

He watches as she talks to a few of the cops and then she’s walking toward him with binoculars in her hands. She climbs up a few steps to the platform and hands them to him. “What is it?”

“I don’t know yet,” he says, slowly, and he takes the binoculars and looks through them at the gap in the trees.

There are stumps all along the bottom edge of the gap, where the trees have been cut down. He can see the still-pale edges of the exposed wood.

“He cut them,” Elliot suddenly exclaims, feeling something bubbling up inside of him. “He cut them so he could have an unobstructed view, and then he built this stand so he could sit here and look.”

Olivia looks around in the direction he’s facing. “What are you talking about?”

“The trees,” he says, pointing. “They block the view, so he cut them!”

She stares. “What did he want to see?”

“What is that hill we’re looking at? Where is it?”

She holds on carefully to the platform and digs the map out of her pocket. He reaches down and grabs a handful of her jacket at the shoulder. Just in case…

After a few minutes of studying, she says, “Allamuchy State Park.”

He swallows and looks at her. “She’s not here. I was right all along. He was afraid of this place because it’s his place to remember. To watch her.”

Olivia furrows her brow and watches him and waits.

He glances at the hill again and then back at her. “You wanna take a ride?”

* * * * *

There’s a park service road that leads up through the hill that he could see from Walker’s farm, and there’s a chain across the entrance, restricting access. Olivia calls Cragen from his passenger seat, and Cragen finds a ranger on duty to come let them in.

“You wanna do a full search,” the ranger says, leaning against the jeep window, “we’ll help out.”

“Thanks,” Elliot tells him. “We just want to check it out quickly for now. See if it merits the full monty.”

The ranger shrugs and unlocks the chain and then hands them the lock. “Can you lock up when you’re done? The park closes in an hour and I’ll be busy.”

“Yeah, sure.” Elliot takes the thick padlock from him and sets it in a cup holder.

They drive up the steep road slowly in a low gear, and study the woods to either side. There’s a plateau eventually, and he puts the jeep in park and climbs out to look back in the direction of Walker’s farm. Olivia still has the binoculars she borrowed from one of the search cops, and she uses them to scan the distant countryside. “We’re almost dead-on,” she says, pointing. “I can see Walker’s farm right there.”

He looks at her. “You think I’m crazy here? Maybe we’re chasing nothing.”

She lowers the binoculars. “I never think you’re crazy, El,” she says softly. Then she smiles. “You know, except when you cheer for the Yankees.”

He snorts and grins at her. “You know baseball’s not my game. Football is the only manly sport worth following.”

“Oh yes,” she says, dryly. “Men in tights wrestling with each other. It’s very macho.”

He grins again and looks away. She likes baseball, and he knows it. She likes the organization of it and the quietness. She falls asleep during games on the weekends. He knows this too, that she likes the low drone of the announcers.

He loves this easy teasing they have with sports. Loves that she’ll listen to him, watch with him, even when they were just partners. Loves that she has her own thing and will defend it to the end, even with him.

He looks up the hill then, and sees the rocky formations he’d seen from Walker’s farm. “Up there,” he says, pointing.

They get back in the jeep and drive further, and just below the rocks, Olivia points to a spot off the road on his side. “There!”

There’s a gap in the brush where it’s been trampled down, branches broken. And a trail.

He parks and they hop out and start down the trail. It’s worn down to dirt in places, and he feels a little disappointed in that. “It’s not new,” he says. “It’s obviously been used a lot.”

Olivia shrugs. “It’s going to get dark soon too. What do you want to do?”

He glances at the sky, which is still sunny but the woods are shaded and darker already. The sun is setting earlier now, and they still have an hour or two of light. He has a flashlight in his pocket. “Let’s keep going,” he says.

“Okay.”

They walk along slowly, looking at the surrounding woods. Here there are dead leaves already on the ground, crunching under foot. He watches Olivia as she moves ahead of him. It feels incredible sometimes to think about how much they’ve been through to get to this point. From day one until now.

She has her hair tied back out of the wind. He can see the delicate curve of her neck and his gaze catches on her nape. It makes him feel warm and a little turned on. He’s put his palm there so many times. He knows the taste there now, and the warmth of her skin, the tickle of her hair.

She has occasionally been distracting over the years, but nothing like now. It is this point more than anything else that makes him realize they can’t go back to being partners again. Not really. Not when they’re back on the clock together.

“So,” he says, stepping up to walk at her shoulder. “That deputy back at Walker’s thought you were hot.”

She snorts with an embarrassed smile. “Yeah, he asked me out for a drink.” She glances at him. “He was cute. About fifteen years younger than I am, but cute.” She’s teasing, and he can’t stop the smile from spreading across his face.

“A month,” he says, “And you’re already thinking about trading up for a younger model.”

She glances at him and rolls her eyes. “That civilian lady with the bloodhounds that kept laughing at every thing you said wasn’t all that subtle either, you know?”

“What?” He feigns eagerness. “The blonde? The one with the big…”

She glares and bumps him with her shoulder, affectionately. And he uses the opportunity to put an arm around her, briefly, and hug her to him. “I didn’t even notice,” he says, softly, in her ear. “You were too distracting.”

“Me and the deputy?” she asks, dryly. And he deserves that. He’s never hid his jealousy from her. Never been able to restrain it in any useful fashion.

“No,” he says, flatly. “Just you.” Then he squeezes the back of her neck gently and releases her, and she looks embarrassed but pleased and it’s a high that makes him smile.

They walk in companionable silence for a while then, and the shadows grow longer.

The path leads right to the rock formations. They are vertical slabs sticking out of the hillside, a common enough sight in Jersey. And lots of other places. They walk around them, and there is graffiti and cigarette butts and beer cans. A few eyebolts stuck in the rock above where climbers set their ropes.

There’s a gap in the trees here, where they can see for a distance, back toward Walker’s farm. “He wants to watch this place,” Elliot says, quietly. “Why?”

Olivia looks around and then steps up beside him. “It’s getting darker now, El. Let’s come back with the dogs later. If she’s here, they’ll find her.”

He takes a breath and then nods, resigned. Despite himself, and all his experience, he’d had high hopes for today. He’d felt like they would finally find Mary. That not one more night would go by with her lost to the world.

He feels oddly frustrated and discouraged. “Damn it,” he swears, quietly.

Olivia’s hand runs up his back. She’s silent, but he knows she gets it. And that he doesn’t want to hear words of comfort right now.

“Let’s go,” she finally says, softly. “I’m getting cold and tired, and we’re not going to find anything in the dark. We’ll start fresh tomorrow.”

He wants to say that no, they won’t. That this is the end and if they haven’t found her after all of this then they never will. He wants to quit.

But her hand on his back makes him pause. “Yeah,” he agrees. He starts back down the path, and she follows. Under the cover of the trees, the path is darker than when they came up, and he walks carefully, eyes on the ground ahead. There are gnarled tree roots sticking out of the ground, and while the path avoids them, they still line the edges.

And it is then that he sees the rocks.

Two small flat rocks stacked one on top of the other, under the thick branches of a shrub. But the branches are broken and twisted slightly, and the red flags wave wildly in his mind, stopping him mid-stride.

Olivia puts a hand on his back to stop herself from running into him. “Whoa.”

He looks at the rocks and then hunkers down on his heels. There are more broken branches. They hadn’t been visible coming the other direction, but now he can see them. Broken away from the trail, as someone had moved off and into the woods.

Olivia bends over him. “What is it?”

“Someone left the trail here.”

“There’s a footprint,” she says, and she points further into the woods.

He looks, and there is indeed a print in some moist earth that used to be mud. The print has the rectangular-shaped treads that hiking boots have, and that’s not unusual, but it’s very close to the photo of the boot print in Dunn’s file. “Jesus…” he whispers.

“Everyone wears boots here,” Olivia warns.

They look off into the woods, but there’s nothing to see. The coming darkness is not relenting, and he stands and moves carefully off the trail, trying to stay off any prints.

Olivia follows him. “Use the flashlight.”

He takes it out of his pocket and uses it to find detail on the ground, even though it’s still light enough to make their way. There are broken twigs, leaves ground into the dirt, furrows in the earth.

He walks slowly, and she follows, and they slip and slide down an embankment and deeper into the woods, and then there are bigger rocks, taller than he is, standing, in a thick tangle of trees, and everything is silent around them.

Olivia makes a small noise, and when he looks, her gaze is focused on a tree branch off to their left. He looks and sees a bit of fabric wrapped around the branch like a flag. It’s a dark maroon color, like blood, and deliberately tied there. Its color is not garish though, and it is hard to see unless you are close.

He doesn’t speak. He almost doesn’t breathe.

He walks closer to the rocks, and they are the mossy-covered, thick slabs that lie everywhere under the ground here. They rise up and tip against each other like a tent, and they dig into the embankment, part of the earth, undisturbed for a long, long time.

They walk around, looking, but the brush is thick.

Then he stops.

Because he smells something unmistakable.

It is faint and it is fleeting, but he’s smelled it a hundred times before, and once you smell one dead human being, you never forget.

“Olivia,” he says, quietly. As if they’re stalking something dangerous and don’t want to attract its attention.

She walks to him, and he tilts his head back, taking a sniff. She does the same. The breeze blows, gently, and it’s there again.

“Oh,” Olivia says, in quiet surprise, and she looks at him with wide eyes.

They look at the rocks and around at the brush, and then they are both digging into the ground, through the leaves and the sticks, against the hard, unforgiving surface of the stones.

“Mary,” he hears Olivia say, like she’s calling for a dead woman.

His fingernails scrape against the rock and his skin gets left behind, and then he grabs at a thick, thorny bush, and it comes away like it was just sitting on top of the ground.

And there is an opening there. Into the rock.

“Olivia!”

She scrambles around to his side and they look at it together. It is a small portal, between the embankment and the stone, and he isn’t sure how anyone could have crawled inside of it. Dunn is a lean man, no taller than Elliot, but narrow in the shoulders.

Olivia digs at the embankment earth with her hands and it crumbles away easily. He helps her widen the hole. It’s still small, and it dips down low, but he can make it, he thinks.

“I’ll go first,” Olivia says, putting a hand on his arm, and he wants to protest, but then she says, “If there are snakes, you’ll have to pull me out fast.” And he relents. It’ll be easier for him to get her out if something goes wrong, rather than the other way around.

She takes her gun out, holds it in her hand, and strips her jacket off. He hands her the flashlight. Then she gets down and goes headfirst toward the hole, on her belly in the dead leaves. He puts his palms on her legs, lets her slide through his fingers.

She crawls forward, slowly, on her forearms, keeping her gun hand in the front, and the flashlight. And slowly, she disappears through the opening.

He tightens his grip on her ankles when she’s nearly all the way through. “What do you see?” Reluctant to let her out of his grip until she tells him she’s safe.

“It opens up,” she calls back. “Like a cave.”

She pulls her legs out of his grip, and he strips his coat off, ready to follow her.

“Oh!” He hears her exclaim.

“Liv?”

“There’s bones, Elliot.”

He gets down on his belly and puts his hands through the hole, hauling himself through. When he senses open air above him, he gets up on his knees, and he is in a small, dark enclosure. A shelter of the rocks above and the embankment to the side. There are a few shafts of the sunset coming through the ceiling, where the rocks tip together.

Olivia is resting on her knees, the flashlight pouring down on something on the floor. When he looks, he sees a ribcage and human leg bones. The bright bits of a knitted sweater, ragged and torn.

Olivia looks at him and her dark eyes are glittering and sad. She looks back down and reaches out, and he wants to tell her to stop, that she knows she can’t touch the body, but she stops before contact. Her fingers hover over the stripped skull, like she’s feeling an aura, and as the flashlight’s beam settles on the ground under her fingers, he sees the long, flowing, still-preserved strands of red hair that cover the skull.

He exhales in a long, slow, exhausted breath.

“We found her,” Olivia murmurs.

And he feels every atom in his body suddenly surrender at once.

* * * * *

It feels different then he thought it would.

He’s imagined how they would find Mary. More than a few times. And he’s always imagined himself settling down on his heels, stoic and sharing a quiet moment with Olivia, maybe wavering between relief and happiness and sadness.

But he feels low.

He feels like he’s been hit by a boulder he hadn’t even known was hanging over him.

In the moments after they realize what they have, Olivia looks at him and says, “I was 99% sure she was dead, but… I had still kind of hoped… that 1%…” She trails away, not sure how to explain herself, and he understands.

He’d had that 1% too, and maybe the search had been something else as well. Something more integral to his psyche. Huang would be fascinated.

But as they wait on the trail for Cragen and the troops to arrive, they are silent and he feels hazy and distracted and crushed somehow.

The CSU team sets up lights and tarps and police lines, and the work begins and goes all night. He and Olivia have tainted a lot of the evidence, although they’ve tried to be careful.

“It’s a closed case,” Cragen says. “It’s okay.”

And the medical examiner says that at least they can figure out how she died. And, of course, make sure that it’s actually Mary there, and not some other missing red head.

But the length and color of the hair are dead giveaways.

They also have to turn it over to the original Jersey cops who handled the missing person/murder case, and they both give their initial statements and then promise to show up tomorrow to talk in depth.

At 2 a.m. they stand silently on the dark trail and watch the body bag go by on a stretcher. Mary Dunn finally found and going back to her family. He feels a heavy weight settle on his shoulders.

For a while, with the focus of the hunt, and with Olivia in his arms, he’d forgotten about their biggest failure. But now it comes back to him in spades.

“I thought I’d feel better,” he says, quietly, so just she can hear him.

She exhales slowly. “I know,” she says. “Me too.”

The scene starts to empty out then, detectives waiting until daylight when they can do a proper search. They’ll leave uniforms around to guard it.

One of the detectives shakes their hands. “Thanks,” he says. “It may not feel like it, but this will be closure to her mother. You know that.”

They do, and he suddenly realizes someone will have to tell Mary’s mother. “When are you notifying?”

The detective sighs. “Tonight, I think. We’re going to need something for DNA comparison. I don’t think there’s much doubt, but we’ll confirm it officially.”

“We could do it,” Elliot says, quietly. “Maybe we should.” He feels Olivia’s fingers brush his.

The detective furrows his brows though, and looks sympathetic. “I think I should do it, detective. Nothing personal. I’ve got a rapport going with her now. She trusts me.”

And that stings a little, the implication that Mary’s mother doesn’t trust them. But then, why would she? If they’d done their jobs to begin with, Mary might still be around.

“Right,” he says, maybe a little relieved, and a lot wounded.

“Good luck,” Olivia says, and she walks with the other detective, away from him. He listens to the familiar sound of her voice as she conducts business and tells the Jersey cop that they’ll be any help they can.

He closes his eyes and breathes, and even still, on the breeze, he can smell the hint of Mary’s death.

He feels weighted down.

In a while Olivia comes back and her fingers slip around his wrist. “Let’s go,” she says, tugging slightly, and he follows her back to his jeep. “You want me to drive?” she asks, and he winces a little at her careful tone.

“No,” he says. “I’m fine.”

They get in and he drives them back to her apartment, and he turns the radio on so they aren’t sitting in silence, but he doesn’t hear it.

He isn’t sure what he thought would happen inside of him if, or when, they finally found Mary. Maybe he thought the guilt would lift. Or maybe he thought he’d feel satisfied, ready to let it go.

But none of that has happened.

“Come up,” Olivia says when he stops in front of her building.

He hesitates, not sure he’s the best company. But when he looks at her, he is caught by her eyes, and he realizes that she is the best company for _him_ tonight. She is the only one who understands everything. She will make him feel better by making herself feel better, and they are tied together in so many ways.

He pulls ahead on the street and finds a parking space.

When they get inside she locks the door behind them and leaves the light off, and he feels suddenly at ease in a strange way. He doesn’t live with her, but it feels like he’s home, or somewhere he can relax, and he slips his boots off and his jacket, and she doesn’t even try to pretend this is just another night.

She doesn’t joke about it or say she wants to talk. She just rubs her forehead wearily and then looks at him, and she says, “I’m taking a shower. You should… come with me.”

She is the one person he wants to be with right now. The one person he wants to distract himself with. When she looks at him, even in the darkness, he can see she feels the same.

He follows her into her bathroom, and like their night in Attica, she simply strips and steps into the warm spray of the shower. He undresses slowly and then follows her in, and the heat of the water almost makes him groan. He hadn’t realized how cold it had gotten, how chilled his skin had been, until the warm water hits him.

He watches the suds of an orange body wash running over Olivia’s body, and her hands slipping over her own skin, and it’s soothing. Sexy certainly, and it makes him want her, but comforting too, like she’s washing them both clean.

She stops to kiss him, pulling him gently into the water along with her. Her mouth is slow and patient and it makes him languid rather than eager. She doesn’t touch him or try to get him hard. She just kisses him and washes and pours the body wash into his own hands so he can wash away the hill.

He does it in turns, scrubbing away one part of him and then letting her pull his mouth back to hers.

By the end, in the heat and the lethargy of it all, she has him almost trembling. Tired and hard and wanting her and feeling too weak to act.

He’s taking this case harder than she is. He feels it clearly now, and she knows it. And he doesn’t care. He lets her pull him out of the shower, and they dry themselves, and then she slides on top of her bed, naked and clean, and looks at him in the dim haze of the moonlight coming through her window.

So he crawls right over the top of her, between her legs, and he lies there, heavy and a little excited, a little exhausted, and kisses her. She runs her hands over his back, and she pulls his hips against her until his cock is sliding against the warmest, wettest part of her, and he groans into her neck and presses his mouth to her skin.

He wants to just give up. Give up the case. Give up the job. Give up to her. Surrender. Let her lead him from now on.

Maybe she knows. _Of course_ she knows.

She moves them both, turns him over, sits on top of him, and in one quick, easy slide, he’s inside of her. She’s hot and slick and tight around him, and he tilts his head back, jaw loose, and feels his heart pounding.

She moves, and she holds his shoulders down, and her hair falls forward and covers her face, and the push and pull of her body on his is just a building wave of pleasure washing through him.

He watches her, panting quietly and heavily, and her face changes as she moves on him. She bites her lip when he’s deep inside her, takes a breath when he’s shallow, and when she’s close she parts her lips and closes her eyes. She rocks on him, the way he rocks inside her when he wants to make her come, and he slides his hands onto her hips and pulls her down hard, driving himself deeper.

She gasps then, and maybe moans a little, and certainly stops breathing for a full moment, before she’s still rocking and he’s holding himself deep, and _Christ_ … It feels too good to stop.

She tightens around him and comes, and her fingers dig into his shoulders, and he can’t think at all. He arches his neck back and feels it starting and all he can do is try to remember to breathe while he comes.

It thunders through him.

He loosens his grip on her as his orgasm weakens, and she knows enough already to keep moving slowly with him, until he completely collapses in relief.

She rests on top of him for a while, and he lazily slides his arms around her, holding her down. She moves with his chest as he catches his breath, and the thick fog of exhaustion falls quickly over him.

He lets her go when she slides off of him and stretches out next to him.

In the silence, as his heartbeat slows and his sweat dries, he feels the thick tiredness behind his eyes, but he can’t drift off.

“We should have been the ones to tell her,” he says, quietly. He means Mary’s mother, although he doesn’t call her by name, but Olivia doesn’t ask him to clarify.

“It’s not our case,” she says.

“It was ours,” he says, meaning that in all the unofficial and painful ways it was theirs. He knows Olivia will understand.

She rests her hand on his upper arm, rubs her thumb over his tattoo. “El,” she says, slowly. “She lost faith in us, for good reason. That detective was right. He needed to tell her, not us. It’s her daughter. It’s about her, not us. And if we’d gone to tell her, it would have been about us.”

“So, we just stay away because we cause her more pain?” He doesn’t like that. It kills him.

“Yes,” Olivia says simply. “We found Mary. That’s as much as we can do to make it right. I think that’s a lot.”

He takes a breath, feels it filling his lungs. He could argue with her. Beat himself up some more and drag her along with him. She’d understand his need.

But he doesn’t have the energy. Or the desire.

“I don’t know if I can sleep,” he admits, and she is so warm next to him.

“Me either,” she agrees, and she curls a little closer to him. “Let’s just lie here a while and see if we can get there.”

He’s willing to lay next to her, still and quiet and peaceful, in the dark, under the smooth, warm, soft sheets. He can hear the distant sound of the cars on the street and his own guilt inside him, accusing and cruel.

He can hear Olivia next to him breathing slowly and deeply. It is the most reassuring sound of all.

Eventually he sleeps, and, mercifully, he does not dream.

* * * * *


	18. Friction

* * * *

She rubs her thumb over the photos that she holds and stares at them. “What were you doing at Lucy’s grave?”

Clay looks at her from where he’s leaning against her kitchen counter, a half-eaten donut in one hand, a tall foam cup of coffee in the other. “To be honest, I’m not sure. I just felt like I had to go back. I felt like we… left her unprotected or something.”

Olivia frowns. The photos are of a business card, front and back, Clay’s name and number on one side, the words ‘As ye sow, so shall ye reap’ on the other. The actual card still resides in an evidence bag in the precinct’s locker.

“It was just stuck there in the dirt,” Clay says. “Up against the stone.”

She mulls this over, staring at the photos. The coffee Clay brought her steams next to her, and she shifts uneasily in her heels. She’s wearing her classic black ‘funeral dress’ today, and it’s never been the most comfortable piece of clothing she owns. Thankfully, she doesn’t wear it often. “I can’t decide,” she says, “If we’re getting closer than we think we are and we’re making him nervous. Or… if we’re so far away that he feels comfortable taunting us.”

Clay finishes off the donut and grabs another from the box on her counter. “Whatever it is, I hope he keeps it up. Because every piece of evidence he leaves us means one more chance of him screwing up and us finding him.”

She shakes her head, frustrated. There were no prints found on the card. No DNA. Nothing. Just the pen ink and even the handwriting is in big block letters, deliberately drawn in a way that no one uses as their primary writing font.

“I’d like to run this by George,” she says, quietly. “I feel like we’re missing something.”

“Go ahead,” Clay says, and she sighs. Because George is a busy man these days, especially with the budget cuts and lean times that all government departments are facing now.

“I can’t promise it’ll be soon,” she says, regretfully, and she slides the photo into her notebook. She rubs tiredly at the bridge of her nose, distracted.

Clay is silent for a moment, and then, “I can’t believe you found her,” he says. “Talk about luck.”

She sighs and thinks about Mary. “Elliot did most of the work, and he worked hard on this, Clay. It was really eating him up.”

“You had almost the entire state of New Jersey, not to mention Staten Island, in your search arc, and you found her. That’s… pretty damn lucky.”

She props her elbow on her counter top and rests her chin in her hand. “Criminals are amazingly beholden to their own psychology.”

“What time is the funeral again?” he asks, glancing at his watch.

“Ten,” she answers, glancing at her own watch. It’s only 8:30. “They already had a memorial service when Mary was declared dead, so this is really just a small ceremony for burial.” She doesn’t know why she’s telling him this. He’s a homicide detective. He knows how things like this usually go. When missing people are found dead.

She’s feeling strangely tense. And jaded.

He ignores it, or understands, and he gives her a faint smile. “I’m glad you found her, Liv.”

She smiles absently back. “Me too. For Mary and her family, of course, but also because I can start focusing on our case more. I feel like I’ve been in this weird, useless limbo between you and Elliot, and you’re both doing most of the work while I bounce back and forth and try to keep up.”

He finishes off the second donut and leans on his elbows on the counter across from her. “You’ve helped me out a lot. I don’t think you realize how much. I’m learning a lot about how to talk to victims from you. And especially women who might, uh… maybe not have reason to trust cops—or men—that much.”

“You’ve had to question prostitutes before,” she says, being direct.

He shrugs. “It’s harder when you come from a place they directly mistrust. For… justifiable reasons.”

She thinks of Roland and sighs. “I haven’t been around much the past week.”

“It’s alright,” he says, softly. He gives her a smile with teasing eyes. “I’ll take as much of you as you can spare.”

She does smile then, feeling slightly embarrassed and slightly fond of him. “It’s been a tough week,” she admits. “With the focus of the press on Mary’s case and the way they rehashed our failed rape case with Nick.” She furrows her brow, troubled. Elliot took it harder than she did, but this case has always been his in a very personal way.

“It’s never easy,” Clay sympathizes.

“I’m not even sure how Mary’s mother will take our appearance at the funeral today. She was hard on Elliot when she talked to him after Nick’s conviction.”

“It’s hard to see through grief,” Clay says, and his eyes are somber and knowing. “Having someone to blame can be a relief.”

She thinks about his wife and wonders who he blamed. Cancer? The doctors? She thinks about her mother. She’d blamed alcohol, her mother’s friends, and she’d blamed her father, her mother’s rapist. It had been easier to feel anger over sadness and hurt.

With a deep inhalation she glances up at Clay. “I’ll be back on Monday ready to work, I promise.”

He nods, slowly, seemingly unconcerned. “I expected,” he says. And leaves it at that.

It’s Friday, the end of the workweek, and it feels curiously like the end of a lot of things. The end of the week, the end of Mary’s case, the end of the search, and weirdly… the end of partnership? She and Elliot have been sleeping together for a while now. Fall is here and if this goes on, it’s possible they’ll never be partners again. Maybe they unknowingly worked their last days together months ago. This search had been a reprieve… but it’s over now.

“We need to find this guy,” Clay says, his blue eyes meeting hers. “Jackson said that Cragen’s making noises about pulling you back soon.”

Olivia sips her coffee and holds his gaze. “He said he’d give me one more month, but if we’re no closer to a solve then he’s going to pull me back and let them try someone else.”

Clay gives her a steely look. “Double-time then. Let’s hit this hard and take this bitch out.”

The corner of her mouth turns up, amused and inspired. “Absolutely.”

He stands and stretches, tiredly, and she watches the muscles in his arms and shoulders as they flex and relax. It’s a stress-free feeling. She can appreciate him without the worry of sexual tension. They tease, but she has no room to focus on anyone other than Elliot romantically. She’d always know it would be that way with Elliot. That he would consume a woman, fill her world so entirely and demand so much attention that it would be impossible to wander far for long.

When Clay looks at her again, he says, “Liv,” tentatively, like he’s starting something he isn’t sure of.

“What?” she prods.

He hesitates for a moment, and then he says, “I like working with you.”

She gives him a crooked smile. “I like working with you too.”

He takes a breath. “Enough to make it permanent?”

Maybe she shouldn’t be, but she’s surprised by that. She didn’t see it coming. She blinks at him. “Permanent?”

He leans over onto his elbows on her counter. “Jackson’s been trying to find me a partner for months. You and Elliot… I mean… You’re going to have to split up now, right?”

She feels a dull pressure in her chest at the thought, but she murmurs, “Yes.” Even with her working with Clay, the relationship with Elliot has been complicated and hard and has driven home to her their need to be partners platonically or romantically, but not both.

“There’s a place for you,” Clay says, quietly. “With me.”

She swallows. “I don’t know if I could ever leave SVU,” she says. And she feels suddenly torn. SVU has been her driving force, for over a decade. For her whole life, really, if she wants to look at it in broader terms. But she and Elliot will need to separate, and this would be a rare opportunity. A chance to have a new partner that she likes and trusts. A chance to work homicide. A relief from the victims of SVU.

“Will you think about it?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says, and she holds his gaze. “I will.”

A knock interrupts them, and she knows it is Elliot, here to pick her up for Mary’s funeral. Her real funeral.

She opens the door and he’s in one of his conservative work suits. Black with a navy shirt. He’s wearing his tan overcoat, and it’s thin enough for late-September’s slowly changing temperatures. The wind has a bite to it these days.

“Hey,” she says. “I’m almost ready.”

He walks in and she watches his eyes narrow as he spies Clay.

“Crowder,” he says, in an unenthusiastic greeting.

Clay turns one half of his mouth up and says, “Stabler.” And then, “I’m sorry about your vic. Glad you found her though.”

“Thanks.” Elliot glances at her and doesn’t move to talk more to Clay, and she can feel the sort of mood he’s in. Heavy and too deep into his own thoughts. It’s too early to know whether he’ll go depressed or angry about it all.

She shuts the case file she and Clay had been discussing and Clay shuts the donut box and tucks it under his arm. She gives him a shake of the head and a small grin at that.

“See you Monday,” he says, quietly.

“Monday,” she says, and he nods at Elliot and then lets himself out.

Elliot watches him go silently and then looks back at her. “He do that a lot? Drop by in the morning with breakfast?”

She shrugs. “Not really. We just had a small development in the case and he was updating me before work Monday.”

Elliot doesn’t react to that. Or say anything. So she grabs her coat and her bag and a pair of slip on shoes for the car, and they walk out to the squad they’re taking.

Mary’s mother has decided to bury Mary’s remains next to her father, in upstate New York. There’s a private service at a Manhattan church and then they have to drive several hours to the small town where Mary’s father lies.

It will take the whole day, and she’s not even sure how Mary’s mother will react to them. She’s polite enough to show indifference, but that will be enough to send Elliot into a deeper funk, she knows.

It will take a while before the guilt over Mary Dunn subsides. In both of them.

It never matters that they do the best they can. It just doesn’t…

* * * *

The church service is small and long.

They sit back a few rows from the main body of mourners. Out of the way.

It’s a typical funeral service, and Olivia has never liked them much. So much focus on how death is coming for everyone and you can never escape it. It’s depressing. She supposes it is meant as a wake-up call, to stop sleepwalking through your life, but it just feels like a dire warning that can’t be outrun.

She stares at the hymnal in front of her and at the stained glass windows as the sun hits them and climbs upward.

Next to her, Elliot is silent and withdrawn. When he leans forward to pray he rests his forehead on the backs of his wrists and hides his face.

She wants to comfort him, and put a hand on his shoulder, on the back of his neck, but it seems invasive somehow.

Instead she lets him be and sits quietly.

She is relieved when it ends and they can go out into the sunshine again. The morning is cool and breezy and carries the strong hint of fall in the air. Dead leaves and fresh, cold wind.

She takes her shoes off in the car and leans back as Elliot drives and they start on their way toward the small town of Riverton.

Elliot doesn’t say much, and she can’t see his eyes well behind his sunglasses.

“I’ll be glad when this is over,” she says, softly, trying to break through.

“Yeah,” he agrees, but then he falls silent again.

She turns on the radio instead.

An hour or so out though, he seems to relax a bit, and so she decides to venture into different territory altogether.

“So,” she says, hesitantly. “Clay asked me to think about being his permanent partner after all this is done.”

Elliot presses his lips together and doesn’t react at first. Then he licks his lips and says cautiously, “And what _do_ you think about it?”

She takes a slow breath. “We can’t stay partners if we’re going to… be together. You know that.”

“I know,” he says, and it sounds deliberately controlled.

“It’d be hard,” she says then. “To give up SVU. I… don’t know if I could, to be honest. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do once I got here.”

Elliot doesn’t look at her, but he tilts his head slightly. Acquiescing. And then, “No one can do this job forever, Olivia. Not even you. It’s too hard.”

She wants to protest and say that maybe she can. Maybe she’s the exception. Maybe she’s the one who was _made_ for this job, and she can do it—has to do it—better than anyone else.

But… she’s not sure if she believes in that sort of destiny.

“Maybe,” she murmurs. She glances at him. “On the other hand, I trust Clay a lot. And it’s hard to find someone you mesh with so well as a partner. He’d be a good partner.” She glances out the side window. “A really good partner.”

Elliot shifts a bit, and then he blows a long, slow breath out through his lips. He sounds utterly and resignedly tired. “Wow,” he says, quietly. “That hurts more than I thought it would.” He finally glances at her. “That you’re really going to have a new partner.” He shakes his head. “I mean, I’ve known it all along, but now that it’s really getting down to it…”

She looks at him. “We can’t go back, can we?”

He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t want to, but… I just… the thought of you and Crowder being partners, it just…” He trails away, seemingly struggling for words, but she knows what he means.

‘Partners’ has taken on another meaning for them entirely. Twelve years of partnership has given them a new definition of the word, and it’s bad enough to know they can’t be partners anymore after this. But to know they’ll have to be partners with someone else, and all that means, and could mean in the future, is… frightening.

“Clay respects the relationship between you and I,” she says.

Elliot twists his mouth. “You respected mine too.”

She sighs. She can’t argue too much though. She can’t promise that nothing would ever tear them apart, because she doesn’t know that. And he doesn’t either. And once they’re both spending time with new partners it’ll be a lot of work to keep themselves from falling into the same old trap…

“I used to think Kathy was so… stupid for worrying about you,” he says then, quietly. He huffs out a short laugh. “And now I know how she felt.”

“If we can’t deal with this then there’s no point in trying,” she says softly.

“I know,” he answers. He looks at her. “And we will. Deal with it.”

She doesn’t answer him and they fall silent again. She watches him driving for a while. His overcoat and his suit jacket are laid out in the backseat and he’s driving in his shirt. The cotton twists and wraps around his biceps and her gaze follows his arm to his hand. He grips the wheel lightly and she can see the delicate hairs on the backs of his fingers, glinting in the sunlight through the windshield.

His face is clean-shaven and she follows the strong curve of his nose, the serious furrow of his brows.

She feels such a pull toward him…

“It’s not a done deal,” she says then, finally. “I wanted to know how you felt about it before I made a decision.”

He chews at the inside of his lip for a few moments before glancing at her. “I want you to have a good partner, Olivia,” he says, voice low. “I want someone who’s going to watch your back like a hawk and send you home safe to me every night. I’ll deal with everything else as it comes.”

She swallows, hard, and nods then. “Me too,” she says, feeling her throat thicken. “For you.”

Driving to the funeral of a woman they couldn’t save, she thinks the one thing they’ve learned in this job, above all else, is that you just need to stay alive first.

Everything else can be dealt with afterwards.

* * *

The Catholic cemetery in the small town of Riverton is tucked off to the side of town. Over a small bridge that crosses a stream, which she supposes is the ‘river’ the town is named for, there is a small hill with gravestones and tall, thick oak trees. The road winding through the cemetery is paved.

They can see the hearse that brought the remains parked next to the gravesite, and they park down a ways and walk toward it. Olivia nods to the New Jersey detectives who are also there. They give her a grim-faced nod back, although she sees the instant recognition that happens between cops. They’d like to talk, but this isn’t the place to smile and get into a deep discussion about the newest child killer on the loose.

Cop humor is best left between cops.

They stand behind the Jersey detectives during the graveside service. She bows her head and listens to the prayers and watches the casket being lowered into the grave, and she feels a sense of relief mixed with frustration. Relief that Mary has been found. Frustration that they hadn’t done more. That it had had to happen at all because they couldn’t pin the rape on Nick when it had been fairly clear he had done it. Her mind, even now, starts cataloging the scene and all the evidence looking for that one piece they must have missed…

Next to her, Elliot’s arm brushes hers. He is intensely serious and withdrawn and almost ominous. He bows his head and stares at the ground, and she can guess that he is going over the same things she is, but she knows him. He’s beating himself up, probably to within an inch of his life.

He’s looking at this as his penance, she thinks. That he has to sit through every minute of Mary’s service, not out of duty, but as punishment. Out of respect too, but he feels like he deserves it.

She leans into him a few times, letting him know she’s there. And he seems to take a breath each time she does, his head lifting a few centimeters, his shoulders relaxing.

The service is relatively short, and then the family mills around and talks to the mourners.

She knows this is the time when she and Elliot will have to talk to Mary’s mother. Mary’s sister is there too, holding the hands of Mary’s children. But the sister gives them a sympathetic, if faint, smile and Olivia remembers her as a quiet, painfully nice person.

They wait a bit, for the co-workers and the friends and the extended family to thin out a bit. Most of them say quick words to Mary’s mother and then head to their cars, most likely off to a private family gathering that she and Elliot haven’t been invited to. (And she’s relieved at that, to be honest.)

When Elliot moves forward, she walks at his shoulder.

“I’m sorry Mrs. Ward,” he says, in that low, aching voice he has. “I’m sorry we couldn’t have done more.”

Mrs. Ward looks at them tiredly and with haunted eyes, and Olivia can’t read her at all. “I know you are, detective,” she replies, looking at them both without a smile. “And I thank you for finding her. In the end.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t prevent this,” Elliot says, and his voice is steady, but she can hear the pain there, even if no one else can. “We should have, and we just…” He stops and swallows, unable to explain himself.

Olivia opens her mouth to jump in, but Mrs. Ward looks directly at him and asks, “Are you a religious man, detective?”

“Yes,” he says simply.

Mrs. Ward nods and then says, “Then you’ll understand when I say that, eventually, I will forgive you. And so will God.”

Olivia feels her heart sink. She almost feels the blow hit Elliot’s body. His soul.

He says nothing, but he tilts his head down, and Mrs. Ward glances at her and then moves away. Olivia watches her go, silently, wanting to argue that they tried. They tried their best, but their best wasn’t good enough. But she knows it’s useless. And that in time, Mary’s mother probably will forgive them. But that right now she needs this. She needs someone to be angry at, because as angry as she probably is at Nick, he is beyond her reach. He is unaffected. He is… simply a beast.

But she and Elliot could have prevented it had the evidence been there, and it is easy to blame them, Not even wrong. And they can bear that so she can bear losing her daughter.

Mary’s sister gives them another sympathetic smile as she passes. “She’s been through a lot,” she says to Olivia, glancing at Elliot and seeming to shy away from his darkness. “She does appreciate all you’ve done. We all do.”

“Thank you,” Olivia says, grabbing her hand briefly. “And we are truly sorry.”

They nod at each other, and then the sister is moving off to take her mother’s arm and help her to the car, and Olivia turns back and finds Elliot already walking toward theirs.

He’s walking determinedly, and there is a tenseness to his stride that makes her very wary.

The Jersey detectives fall in with her.

“She doesn’t understand the whole process,” one of them says to her, gesturing toward Mrs. Ward. “That knowing who did it and proving it are two different things.”

Olivia nods, absently. “I know,” she says. “It’s okay. She needs to have someone to focus her anger on. If it helps…” She shrugs.

They talk a little more, and they tell her they’re all going to get a bite and have a few drinks if she and Elliot want to join them, but she glances at her watch and it’s already nearly 4. Not to mention Elliot is in one of the least sociable moods she’s ever seen. “I think we’re just going to start back,” she says.

They trade ‘nice working with you’ platitudes, and they head toward their car while she heads toward Elliot.

He’s pacing next to the car, waiting for her, and she doesn’t like how wound up he looks.

“We did everything we could,” she says as she watches him. “She’ll realize that someday.”

He clenches his jaw and glare at her with a look that clearly says ‘don’t patronize me’.

She sighs and holds her hands up, palms out, in surrender. But she says, “Maybe I should drive, El.”

“I’m fine,” he growls, wrenching his overcoat off and opening the passenger door to throw it in the backseat. “If I have to sit and do nothing on the ride home I’ll go crazy.”

 _Too late_ , she wants to sling back at him, feeling sympathetic and annoyed with him at the same time. And she knows how fast he drives when he’s angry. “You can barely stand in one place for more than a second,” she protests.

He slams the door suddenly and viciously and turns on her. “I said I’m fine!” he shouts.

She immediately bristles and the people parked nearby and standing next to the cars turn to stare at them. Elliot glances at them and swears under his breath, turning to walk around the car and lean against the trunk. He bends over and puts his hands on his knees and goes still, breathing quietly.

She glances around and gives the people a tight smile. They go back to their own business, and she walks slowly around to face Elliot.

“You need a drink before we head back?” she asks, struggling to keep her voice calm but not placating.

He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “Sorry,” he rasps. And then he reaches into his pocket and hands her the keys.

She slides her fingers around his as she takes them from him, squeezing briefly. He meets her gaze and she watches some of the fight go out of him. “Let’s go home,” she says, quietly.

She gets into the driver’s seat, and he climbs in beside her, and she pulls out.

* * * *

It’s a quiet drive home.

She puts the radio on, and they don’t have much to say to each other. He leans back and closes his eyes from time to time, and though she knows he’s not sleeping, it’s a break from the tension crackling in the car.

The sun is just starting to set by the time they get back. Just outside of the city, she stops so they can eat. She doesn’t think either of them are very hungry, but she hasn’t had anything since Clay’s donuts that morning, and she really doesn’t want to cook when she gets home.

They have pasta at a chain restaurant, and Elliot has a double scotch. She drinks water. There are television sets mounted in all the corners, tuned to sports, and she stares at the screen across Elliot’s shoulder, while he stares across hers. She thinks she should probably press him to talk, but finds her own desire for conversation dwindling.

Instead, she thinks about Mary’s old case and her current case with Clay, and Elliot’s frustration seems to seep into her.

Nothing seems to go right. Everything she tries becomes a dead end or just a big endless circle. They missed something in Mary’s case, and now she’s missing something with this Holy Roller guy, and she wants to blame everybody but herself, but she knows that’s not right.

They are her cases to win or lose, and right now she’s losing.

* * * *

In the car outside her apartment, she looks at him and asks, “You coming?”

He furrows his brow and glances out the window. “I don’t know,” he says.

She watches him for a moment, feeling the heaviness on both them. “You want to talk about it?” she asks quietly. “It’ll help.”

“No,” he answers curtly.

She sighs, annoyance trickling through her blood. She feels slighted maybe, and frustrated. With him. With herself.

“Fine,” she says, irritated, and she opens her door and goes to slide out.

His hand closes around her arm and yanks her back inside. She glares at him. He glares back. “You want me to come up?” he demands. “Because I’ll be really bad company tonight.”

“Do whatever you want,” she snaps. She pulls her arm from his grip and gets out of the car, muttering on the way, “Keep it all bottled up until you explode. Like usual.”

He gets out and slams the door. He glares at her, but he walks up behind her, silently.

 

Inside, she gets out of her shoes, and Elliot stands at her kitchen counter and refuses her offers of another drink. It’s quiet and dark in the apartment, night coming earlier and earlier these days.

Turning the TV on would dispel the tense silence, but she feels annoyed by the thought of senseless chatter in the background like that.

When he sighs and leans heavily on the countertop, she breaks a little. Angry. Maybe at him, maybe not. Probably not. “Let it go,” she says, maybe a little sharper than she intended. “Families get angry at us. It’s nothing new.”

He glares at her, instantly ready to fight, and maybe she knew that before she started. “We’re the ones who fucked this up, Olivia. We shouldn’t be getting over anything.”

“Well, moping around like it’s the end of the world isn’t going to help!”

“Yeah, you get back to me in a few months when you still haven’t caught that prostitute killer that’s running circles around you and that meathead you want to be partners with.”

She explodes. “Don’t you do that,” she seethes. “I brought up the partners thing so we could discuss it. Don’t act like it’s something I’m doing wrong!”

“We did discuss it!” he argues. “Don’t expect me to just grin and bear it like it’s nothing!”

They’re squaring off and glaring at each other, and she can feel the rage bubbling up inside of her. She can see it rising up inside of him too, and she can feel the potential for explosion. How this could go so completely wrong if they let it get out of control. Because they, better than anyone, know exactly how to hurt one another.

“Okay,” she says, feeling tight and tense. “Let’s just… Let’s not do this.”

He’s breathing heavier and he looks at her with a sullen gaze, and he shifts a bit, uneasily, and she sees that he wants to fight. Needs it maybe. He can’t just surrender. “You want me to leave?” he grinds out.

She stares at him, undecided. She doesn’t want to fight, but she does. She doesn’t want him to leave, but she doesn’t want to do this. He must feel the same way or he’d have gone out the door already.

She wants…

She wants the sparks in her blood to leap into fire. She wants… the weight of him on top of her. She wants… to feel his strength and the solidness of his muscles, the heat of his skin. She wants his mouth.

She walks up to him, slides her hand onto the back of his neck, and she pulls his mouth down to hers.

He opens his mouth immediately and kisses her back. His hands grab her around the waist.

Then he pulls away. His eyes are still angry, his jaw muscles clenched. “You don’t want me to fuck you right now,” he warns.

She almost laughs.

Instead, she pushes him back against the counter and kisses him again.

This time he puts his own hand on the back of her neck and kisses her back with intent. His mouth is hot and hard and very insistent.

She pulls him toward the bedroom.

When they get through the door, she backs him into the wall again and presses up against him.

His tongue is moving with hers and he’s sinking into her a little, and his fingers are curled into her waist, hard.

She’s still feeling a little heated from the argument and the day and, honestly, the past year. All of it feels caught up inside her the same way it was the night Lucy died. Then it had overwhelmed her, caught her off guard, but now…

She has his shirt unbuttoned and she tugs at it, wanting it off. He doesn’t want to take his mouth off of hers though, and he moves slowly, working it from his arms. She exhales into his mouth in frustration and grabs it, pulling it roughly down his arms and off, making him grunt as his arms are briefly pinned behind him. The movement wrenches his mouth off of hers.

He doesn’t tell her to take it easy though. He just looks at her with a dark, piercing gaze. It sends shivers up her spine. It makes her want him. It makes her want to fight him.

She moves forward and pushes him back against the wall, hard enough to make a _thump_ , and he glares but she puts her mouth back on his and slides her tongue inside.

He kisses her back, eagerly. Hard. And his hands start grabbing the skirt of her dress and gathering it upward.

She stands back and slips the dress off, and then everything underneath, and the cool air feels good against her skin.

He looks at her, and his chest is heaving up and down with his breath, and his jaw is clenching, and she feels the tension inside of him. Feels it spreading through her own limbs.

And then they just go… mad.

She goes back for his mouth, but he beats her to it, and he kisses her like he wants to swallow her whole. They’re both grabbing at his pants, trying to get them off, and he finally has to grab her by the elbow and yank her around him toward the bed, where he shoves her down across the bottom of the mattress. While she bounces down on her back, he gets the pants off and then he leans over her, naked.

He glares down at her, his eyes hard, his arms flexed and caging her, sunk into the mattress on either side of her shoulders.

“You want this?” he demands, and his voice is rough and tight and low.

The fact that he’s willing to give it, and maybe she’s always known he would be, sends a wave of wanting through her.

“Yes,” she says, and she grabs him by the back of the neck and pulls his head down to hers.

He kisses her so hard their teeth scrape together, and then he’s pulling back and grabbing her wrists and twisting her around, and he drags up her up over the middle of the bed until she’s lying on her back in the center, and then he’s on top of her.

He kisses her hard enough to take her breath away and sink the mattress six inches. She’s pulling at him and then shoving him. He’s struggling to get her still, and she’s pushing against him. And then they are fighting. There’s no other word for the push and pull between them. The way they struggle against each other. And it sends the arousal inside of her higher.

He’s so much stronger than her, but he has a hard time with her, and it makes her muscles burn with effort. It feels liberating and intense and immensely exciting. It’s the way she’d wanted it when Lucy died, before she broke down under the weight of her own guilt. The way she’s wanted it so many times after bad cases but had to settle for a nice guy from the bar down the street. Too afraid to trust him with something this private. Something this… dangerous.

But this is Elliot. The man she trusts more than anyone else alive.

And he is growling into her mouth and panting hard against her lips and when she slides her hand down between his legs she can feel him, harder than she’s ever felt him, and slick at the tip, he’s so turned on. But then, she’s so wet she can feel it on her fucking _thighs_ already. Jesus…

His tongue is running over her throat and her breasts and his saliva is wetting her skin, and his hands are running heavily over her and then holding her down. He grabs her chin and forces her head back and puts his mouth on her neck, sinks his teeth into her skin and then lets go and sucks until it hurts and she bucks up against him. He shoves her back down.

She’s tiring, but she’s not tired, and she just wants him inside of her.

He’s breathing hard, and he settles his weight down between her legs, holding them open, and he slides his hand there. He makes a wordless, breathless sound as his fingers slip inside her, and she’s so slick she can barely feel him there.

He moves his whole body with his fingers, in a way that tells her he wants to be there. He wants his fingers out and his body there, between her legs and inside of her, and she wants that too.

He is still holding back.

He’s watching her as he moves his fingers, and she sucks in her breath and watches him back, and she wants to provoke him.

“You gonna pussyfoot around all night, or are you going to fuck me?” she demands, quietly.

And maybe that was what he was waiting for. Maybe he just needed to know she was more than okay with the way this was going.

His jaw clenches, and then he pulls back on his knees, rising up over her, and he grabs her by the thighs, fingers digging into her skin so hard it hurts, and he yanks her down toward him, dragging her ass over the sheets and up over his thighs.

She sucks her breath in and holds it, but before she can let it out again, he’s leaning over her, reaching between them, leading the tip of his cock to her and then pushing forward, burying himself inside of her. It’s sudden and powerful, and even as wet as she is it makes her wince.

He doesn’t notice, and she doesn’t care. It feels good. Amazing even. He shoves as deep as he can get, and he falters for a moment. She hears the hint of a groan in his breath. And then he’s moving, thrusting hard and fast and deep and pulling out slow. And it’s so good she almost can’t breathe.

She moves with him and digs her nails into his back, tugs at his hair, fights with him, pushes him, pulls him deeper, kisses him until he’s panting and out of breath. The rougher she gets, the harder he thrusts, the more he groans, and the burn in her body is overwhelming.

It’s never been like this. All the nights of sex after a bad case, when all she’d wanted was to let loose and get rough. She could find guys to be hard, but she’d just never trusted them. Not like this. Not in a way she could be vulnerable and on the attack at the same time. Never.

But she can do that now. She can give herself over to Elliot, and everything he does feels good. Every pain sends sparks through her blood and every deep thrust takes her breath away.

She sucks at his skin the way he sucks at hers, and she bites him. On the shoulder, on his neck, even his hand when he grabs her chin and his palm slides over her mouth. He is fucking her hard enough to slam the headboard against the wall and drive the breath from her lungs with each thrust, and as she gets closer to coming, her muscles burn with weariness. And it is satisfyingly good.

All of her frustration pours out onto his skin through her nails and her fingers and her mouth. She can’t even think then. She just feels and wants it to go higher. His back is slick with sweat, and she feels drops landing on her neck and her breasts. When she looks up at him, his face is fierce, his eyes half-closed but still intense as he stares down at her. He grits his teeth and closes his eyes on every other stroke, overwhelmed.

She is feeling the warning twinges of orgasm, and she breathes hard and shuts her eyes and slides her hands over his lower back to pull him deep, and he presses his forehead against her temple and drives so deep inside of her, forcing her down against the mattress, that she can’t move anymore.

She moans into his shoulder as she comes, wave after wave, the relief making her feel faint.

It goes on in a way that feels intense. And there’s too much of that with him. Too many things that are so intense and she can barely take it.

Her heart thuds and when the climax finally lets her go, the echo of it remains. She tries to breathe steadily, but she’s helpless.

He’s panting in her ear, his chest heaving against her, and he’s hard and full inside of her, moving slowly as she works through the last bit of pleasure and the aftermath.

When she finally looks up at him, his expression is grim and dark and a little sullen. He looks pained as well, and she can’t help it. She reaches up, gently now, and brings his mouth down to hers. She holds him lightly, teasing his lips with her tongue, and then gives him short, intimate, slow kisses.

He falters.

She wraps her legs around his hips, pulling him deeper and using the leverage to move with him, slowly. She slides her fingers over the back of his head, through the short strands of his hair, with a caressing touch.

He gasps into her mouth, groans, thrusts against her and then presses her down and comes. And she can feel how intense it is. His whole body tightens, flexes and shudders. Her thighs get wetter.

She slides her arms around him and holds on, and she marvels over the way they both need something different than what they are sometimes. How she needs to get rough and he needs to get gentle and how they can start out in one place and end in another.

He collapses in her arms.

She feels too exhausted to move, and she rests her hands against his sides and strokes him with her thumbs. She closes her eyes and doesn’t feel like she can open them again.

He slides off of her with a groan, and the cool air feels chilling and good at the same time. The sweat misting her body dries.

She wonders if they should talk about this, but somehow that seems unnecessary. She realizes she’d always assumed he’d like rough sex. Sometimes. Maybe even need it, like her, because it was so hard to put that anger away after some cases.

This happened because they’d wanted it. It felt natural in a way. It hadn’t been satisfying with anyone else because they hadn’t really understood what was in her heart and her mind. They hadn’t gone through it with her like Elliot had.

Their anger had come from the same place, and even though they’d fought against each other, they’d really been fighting on the same side. Together.

And that made all the difference.

She slips into sleep like she’s melting away.

* * * *

When she wakes it is still dark and she is so thirsty her mouth feels like sandpaper.

Elliot is breathing deeply beside her, and she eases from the bed quietly. It’s close to 3, and they must have slept hard, because it doesn’t feel like she’s been asleep for six hours. The way her body aches as she moves tells her why.

She feels exhausted in a good way. She aches everywhere. Her arms, her legs, her back, between her legs. Dried sweat itches on her skin.

She pulls on shorts and a light cotton tank top she often wears to bed, and then she hits the bathroom. In the light she can see the darkening bruises along her legs where Elliot grabbed her more than once. There are dark red marks on her neck where he sucked at her skin, one right under her chin, and she knows Clay will give her endless shit about that. She runs her fingers over them and swallows.

It isn’t something she’s into all the time, but sometimes the job gets bad. Sometimes it’s just… hard to be anything but angry. She just wants to rage and fuck and get it all out of her system. And though she’s tried it occasionally over the years, it simply didn’t work. The guys she trusted enough to be this rough were too nice to want it. The guys who were capable were too dangerous. It just wasn’t something she could ever let go inside of herself.

But Elliot…

She trusts him more than any other person. And she feels safe revealing herself to him. It had been… She’d always known he could handle it, but she’d avoided wondering if it was something he was getting at home. Something he and Kathy did when he came home angry and tense.

She still doesn’t know that, and she’s not sure she wants to know. Parts of their past need to stay there.

She walks to the kitchen and pulls a bottle of water out of her refrigerator. She drinks half in one big gulp and then pulls another out and walks back toward the bedroom. The water immediately soothes her, and she hops smoothly up onto the desk by her window and sips slowly at the rest, staring through the blinds at the dark and silent street below.

Elliot stirs on the bed, and she glances at him and then away again. She still finds this whole thing scary as hell. Like she’s standing on the edge of a cliff and the slightest push will send her falling. She cares about him far, far too much.

It’s a danger sign in her mind, warning her desperately, and she knows—knows—that it’s not a true sign. It is a trick. It is years of her childhood, of her mother abandoning her to run off drinking, of her mother’s emotional unavailability, of her father’s hideous crime. She had food and shelter, but she had no one to cry to when things went wrong, when she was hurt, when she was sad. And now, trying to connect with someone and let them have all of that… It’s just hard.

She is deliberately ignoring that warning voice, because it is warning her against Elliot, and she knows Elliot. Knows his staying power, and his dedication, and the sort of man he is inside.

But it’s a battle. It’s a risk. And she still feels like she will be crushed at any moment.

But each day it lessens. Just a little. And that’s reassuring.

“What time is it?” Elliot asks from the bed. His voice is thick with sleep. He shifts.

“About three,” she answers quietly. She takes a sip of water.

He looks at her for a moment in the darkness and then licks his lips. She holds up the unopened water bottle.

He climbs slowly from bed, giving an old man grunt as his knee cracks. He stretches his back with a wince as he stands. The moonlight comes through her window, broken by the horizontal slats of her blind.

She smiles and lets her gaze drop over his body. He’s naked and shadowed, but she isn’t yet tired of looking at him.

He takes the bottle from her as he approaches, and he leans close against her side, pressing his mouth to her temple and sliding one hand warmly over her bare thigh. It quiets that warning in her mind, and makes her want to rest against him.

He drinks and then gets quiet and his fingertips trace over her thighs and fit themselves, gently, to the bruises he left. “Sorry,” he says, softly, his voice a rasp.

“Don’t be,” she says, her voice just as low. “I really…” She hesitates, feeling a little tongue-tied and vulnerable, even though she trusts him with her deepest, darkest secrets. “Really wanted that,” she finishes quietly.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, fingers tracing the bruises, following them until his hand slips between her legs. He skims her with his knuckles but doesn’t get any more serious about it. He rests his hand there. “Sometimes,” he says, his mouth against her hair. “You just don’t want to… hold back.”

She feels a liquid warmth in her bones. “Yes,” she says. Agrees. “The way I was after Lucy died… I just…” She sighs. “When I used to get like that I couldn’t do anything about it. There was just never anyone I trusted enough…” She trails off, feeling like she’s talking too much.

He sets his water bottle down and slides his hand up onto her nape, pressing his forehead against her temple. His other hand is still between her legs. “I know how hard it is. I… Jesus, I _know_.” He exhales and his lips brush her ear. “You never have to hold back with me, Liv.”

She takes a shaky breath and shuts her eyes briefly. She believes him. And it’s almost too much of a relief. Too good to be true. “Neither do you,” she says, in a whisper. She knows he does anyway. She does too. There is give and take, and it has to be game sometimes. “Not like this,” she adds. “Not here.” And she means the bedroom and what they do beneath the sheets.

He kisses her temple, then her cheek, slowly. “I love you,” he says, and he sounds so… vehement.

She feels the words pull at her lips, and at somewhere deeper. That red warning in her psyche tries to stop her, but she pushes past it. “I love you too,” she says. And then she holds her breath.

He hesitates for a moment, his hand tightening on her nape, as if she might get up and run. And then she feels the exhalation of his breath against her cheek, and he says, “Did you just tell me you loved me?” And she can hear the smile in his voice.

She feels the red hot burn of embarrassment in her cheeks and she’s glad the darkness will hide it. “I knew you were going to make a big deal out of this,” she complains, but she smiles.

He slides his hands on her, moves around her in the dark until he’s pushing between her legs and slipping his arms around her, nearly forcing her back onto the desk. He puts his mouth near hers. “I’ve been waiting twelve years, Liv. It’s a big deal.”

She smirks and slides her hands under his arms, around his ribs, lets them sink and rest on his hips, where the slope of his ass starts. “I’ve said it before,” she says. “You just didn’t hear me.” She’s thinking of the night he fell asleep before she said it. But she realizes it’s been longer than that. She’s been saying it for years now. They both have. They just couldn’t afford to hear each other.

“Well, I’m listening now,” he says, and he brushes her lips with his. Then he tilts his head back and looks at her.

“I love you,” she says again, seriously and softly.

He kisses her. Wet and warm and long. She pulls him in closer.

His phone rings.

He collapses against her with a groan and swears and she laughs. It’s something they’ll have to get used to. She watches as he goes to answer it, thinking that she’ll drag him into the shower afterwards, and then they can change the sweat and sex soaked sheets and sleep late this morning.

But as he answers the phone and his gaze lifts to hers, she realizes that none of that is going to happen. She knows that look like she knows her own face in the mirror. It’s a case.

She smiles, still, as he stands naked, hand on his hip, talking to Don in clipped tones and wearing the stern, hawkish expression that he gets when he’s being a detective.

She sighs when he hangs up and looks at her. “I know that look,” she says, resignedly. “You’re on your way out.”

“Yeah,” he says. “But so are you.” She lifts her eyebrows, and he continues, “Someone just killed a woman and left her body in an alley down near Stanton. She was posed and she had a bible page stuffed in her mouth.”

Olivia stares at him, surprised. “Are you kidding me?”

“No,” he says, voice nearly a growl. He looks at her with fierce eyes and an intensity that burns. “Your guy just killed in Manhattan.” He gives her a smile that sends a shiver down her spine. “He’s on _my_ turf now.”

* * * *


	19. Torque

* * * *

The sky is just starting to lighten to that dull, ethereal blue color that dawn brings, and Elliot hunkers down on his heels next to the body of the woman. The lights that Melinda’s techs have set up to flood the area are harsh, and he has to brush away the moths that flutter toward him.

The woman is young. Maybe early twenties. Maybe younger. She’s in running shorts and a T-shirt, old ragged Converse sneakers. She wears a long, delicate looking trench coat that she can open quickly to flash her intentions. Or close quickly to walk on, if she sees the police.

This one is strangled, and he knows from Olivia that this perp has been all over the board that way. Seemingly wanting to strangle, but not sticking with it.

He looks up and sees Crowder walking toward them down the alley. Olivia walks to meet him, and they stand, heads bent together. Clay grabs her shoulder in greeting, lets it linger there.

He feels an instant and instinctive rumble of anger in his gut that he quickly pushes away. It is something he is used to, especially concerning Olivia. If he acted on every base level emotion he had, he’d be far more of a wreck than he already is.

He’d be jobless and friendless and possibly committed.

But his gaze finds the two of them again and again as they stand and talk quietly together.

Their relationship makes him uneasy. He’s never been particularly objective when it comes to Olivia, he admits, but he doesn’t like how close they’ve gotten. Seemingly so quickly.

Maybe he doesn’t like to believe that she could be close to another partner the way she’s close to him. Maybe that… scares him in a way that’s desperate. Ironic.

They walk toward him.

Melinda has taken the bible page from the girl’s mouth already and sealed it in an evidence bag for transport to her lab. There was very little other trace evidence.

Across the body, Crowder and Olivia hunker down on their heels and look at him.

“So, I guess we’ve got a threesome now,” Crowder says, and there’s a hint of teasing in his voice. A hint of… challenge?

Maybe Elliot is seeing things that aren’t there. He doesn’t smile though. He holds Crowder’s gaze and tries to see inside him. Crowder gazes back, speculatively.

Olivia asks, “What is this?” And when he looks, she’s peeling back the trench coat and looking at the girl’s bare leg. She’d been working the area, while he’d gone over the body with Melinda.

There are two long, narrow, diagonal, parallel marks high on the side of the girl’s bare left calf. Right in the meaty part. The skin is red and falling away, the tissue wet and bloody. It looks like somebody skinned her there, but they’d brainstormed another cause.

“We think they’re burns,” he tells her.

She gives him a puzzled glance and waits for him to explain.

He shrugs. “In the struggle she was pushed up against something hot. Like a car or a motorcycle’s tailpipe.”

“Motorcycle tailpipes will burn the shit out of you if you’re not wearing long pants,” Crowder says, alert.

Elliot nods. “If he grabbed her, hauled her up against him, and he was still on the bike…”

Crowder nods along with him. “Yeah,” he says. “I can see it.”

Olivia glances at Clay. “He could have made a deal and agreed to meet her back here in the alley. Most of the girls have a nearby place they instruct the guys to wait.”

Clay nods slowly. He looks up at Elliot. “What about the bible page?”

“Highlighted with yellow marker. ‘And war broke out in heaven,’” he recites from memory, “ ‘Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; And the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was there a place found in heaven for them any longer.’”

Crowder furrows his brow and looks pensive, staring down at the girl, but Olivia sucks in her breath and glances sideways. “Michael?” she asks, in a whisper.

Elliot feels lost as he watches them, feeling confused. Crowder glances at her and then away. “It’s just a coincidence,” he says, quietly.

“There _are_ no coincidences in this case,” she answers. And he falls silent.

“What’s going on?” Elliot demands, annoyed.

And they both glance at him but then they look away.

And he feels cold.

* * * *

Days later, Elliot yawns and rubs his forehead tiredly as he stares down at the case file. He already knows a lot about this serial case from Olivia. They talk about things. But he needs to catch the details.

Although they’re working together now, it’s more of an unofficial thing. It’s late and he’s still at his desk, reading the file, because Olivia and Clay are out in the night, questioning the Manhattan girls. Olivia always knew them better anyway.

What he’d really like to be doing is slipping into bed with Olivia and falling into a deep sleep. The past few days have allowed precious little time for rest. When they have found time for sleep it hasn’t been at the same time, and he sees her in quick flashes throughout the day as he struggles to catch up with their case and keep the Manhattan cases up to date as well.

 _And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; And the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was there a place found in heaven for them any longer._

He stares at the crumpled bible page, flattened and smoothed in the clear plastic evidence bag.

In the early dawn of the Manhattan crime scene, three days ago, Olivia and Clay had pulled him aside and Clay had pulled his shirt up in back, revealing a massive tattoo of Michael, the angel, defeating Satan. It’s an image of a famous painting, one he knows well. And while his first response had been a bit of awe at the workmanship of the skin art, the obvious connotations to the case had given him chills.

The murderer was well aware of who was working the case, and he wanted to play. Maybe he wanted to kill…

He feels better being involved now, although he knows, deep inside, that if the killer wants to get to Olivia it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to stop the guy. He has to have faith in Olivia’s awareness. Her abilities. And he does… but even good cops get killed. They make mistakes. They are human.

He stares at the bible verse again and wonders what the killer was thinking. What he means by this. Does he imagine himself as the dragon? And Crowder as Michael? Where does that leave Olivia? As one of Michael’s angels?

It does play into the police-taunting M.O. Does he want to depose the cops working his case? Or is it more than that?

Maybe the killer thinks of himself as Michael… On a mission to clean up the ‘evil’ of the world. Maybe he doesn’t know anything about Crowder’s tat and this really is all coincidence. They have to look at all the angles. They can’t make assumptions.

He brings up the list of vehicle registrations for the city again. Melinda had delegated the job of the victim’s suspicious burns to a tech, and the results had been rather quick. And solid. The two long, narrow, slanted and parallel burns on the victim’s leg are consistent, in size, shape and distance, with a very small list of makes and models of motorcycles. It’s nowhere near conclusive, of course, because bikes have always been very customizable, and after-market parts are widespread. But it’s a start.

He’s been glancing on and off through the registration records of the city for each specific model for the last hour, although he’s only half-hearted. Tomorrow they’ll crosscheck the registration names with criminal records and see what comes up.

He’d called Olivia with the results of the autopsy and lab tests this morning, and they’d planned a meeting with Huang next week to hopefully get a profile of their guy. But until then, it’s about canvassing the area and finding as many clues and possible eyewitnesses as possible. While he stays in the office to collect the incoming lab results and do some computer work, Olivia and Crowder had headed out onto the streets, led by Olivia’s in-depth knowledge of the working girls in Manhattan.

He can admit that the situation is sticking in his gut a bit. Churning there. For all intents and purposes, she is still his partner. Their romantic relationship is still unofficial for the time being, although he knows that time is running short. Having to sit here while she runs off with a new partner though… one she seems to like and has bonded with…

That’s a hard pill to swallow, no matter how you look at it. And he can’t see it ever getting any easier.

 _No one said it would be easy_ , he reminds himself. _Olivia has never been easy._

But she’s worth it. If she wasn’t—if he wasn’t—they’d have split long ago. Long before they’d ever slept together.

He scans the list of names on his computer screen absently. He hates sitting at his desk, being inactive.

Then his eye catches.

It’s a sudden tic in his brain. A red flag that suddenly swings up.

He backtracks along the names, looking for that catch again.

And there it is.

2002 Harley Davidson Fatboy. Clayton Michael Crowder. Brooklyn address.

He stares at it, feeling a coldness in his chest.

 _It doesn’t mean anything_ , he tells himself. Harley Davidsons, all bikes, are extremely customizable. And the Fatboy was Harley’s most popular bike.

But…

He’d called Olivia with the results that morning, and Crowder had been right there with her. Why hadn’t he mentioned that he owned one?

Elliot clicks into a more in-depth view to see Crowder’s criminal record. There’s nothing except the same few traffic citations that are in 95% of the public’s files.

Because he’s a cop, there are more files. His fingerprints and DNA. A record of his tattoos and scars. He clicks into the picture of the Michael tattoo on Crowder’s back.

And then glances at Crowder’s middle name.

 _What the fuck?_

He leans back in his chair and tilts his head back, stretching his back and his arms before rubbing tiredly at his face with both palms.

This is nuts. Crowder isn’t killing prostitutes by night and then investigating the case by day. That doesn’t happen.

Well. It rarely happens.

When he looks back at the screen, those red flags are still waving in his brain.

It’s nothing. There is no evidence. The connections he is making are… tenuous at best. They could probably fit a thousand other guys in the state too.

Except, of course, Crowder is a cop. And he’s the one working the case.

And he’s working with Olivia.

And he needs to be really careful, because he’s biased. There is a part of him that wants to rip them apart. He wants Olivia to have a good partner, and yeah, he’s jealous. Just a bit. Because he’s watching her work with someone else the way she used to work with him. But she comes home to him at night now.

He doesn’t want to start seeing demons where there are none. He’ll destroy them both doing that.

But even as he logs off his computer and heads out for the day, the notion won’t stop nagging at him.

It sinks its hooks in and won’t let go.

* * * * *

He loves her at night, in bed, when she’s tired and nearly asleep, after he’s just made her come and she’s moaned his name in his ear.

She looks vulnerable then. And unguarded. And he can run his hand over her skin, absently, and feel the way she’s surrendering to him.

It is late, and the sweat is still drying on his back, and he is tired. It is the first time in days that they’ve been home at her apartment at the same time, and the first sex they’ve had since the rough bit after Mary’s proper funeral.

He feels sated.

But.

“Hey,” he says, quietly. He tries to keep his tone light, conversational. Not accusing.

“Hmm,” she says back. Her eyes are still closed, and he rubs at her shoulder to wake her up some.

“Did you know Crowder owned a Harley Fatboy? Like the type we’re looking for in this case?”

She opens her eyes and looks at him.

He forces himself to be silent and wait.

“Yes,” she says, slowly. “We went riding one day a few months ago.” She narrows her eyes. “Why?” she demands, and she doesn’t try to curb her tone. At all.

He sees the way she immediately studies him, trying to work out what he’s thinking. And it makes him uneasy.

“You, uh, don’t find that a little… odd?”

“No,” she answers vehemently. “There must be a thousand people who own bikes that fit our criteria in the city. Take that times a hundred when you add in the entire state. Plus New Jersey.”

She’s daring him to make the accusation, and he knows at this point it’s useless. And stupid, to be honest. Her stoic defense of Clay stings him though. He doesn’t say anything at first, and so she heads him off at the pass anyway.

“They can’t even be entirely accurate matching the burns to specific exhaust pipes, Elliot. They can only tell us which models the burns are consistent with. That includes a ton of after-market parts, in addition to the Harley bikes.”

“I know,” he admits.

“Then what are you saying?” she asks.

He sighs. “His middle name is Michael. Did you know that?”

She blinks at him. “No,” she says softly. “I didn’t know that.”

“Well, it is.”

He watches as she absorbs that information and then she gives him a confused look and shrugs helplessly. “Okay… so? How many men in the world have the middle name of Michael? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? More? What are you doing?”

“I’m just…” He hesitates and takes a breath. “I’m just… putting it out there. I’m not accusing him of anything.”

“It sounds like you are,” she states.

He holds her gaze and keeps his voice soft. “It just seems weird, that’s all. I feel like he should have told me he owned a Fatboy when I called with the lab results this morning.”

“Maybe he felt like it wasn’t relevant, since, you know, he’s not actually the one killing the women.”

He feels irritated then, by her sarcasm, but he backs off. “Yeah,” he says. “Maybe.”

 _But why didn’t you tell me then?_

Except, he doesn’t want to fight. And he’s willing to give Olivia the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she just forgot.

Crowder should have told him.

“We have to look at every possibility,” he says, maybe trying to justify himself. “You know that.”

“He’s not a criminal,” she tells him, eyes hard.

“Okay,” he says, quietly.

She falls silent then, but her brow is still furrowed in worry. He strokes her hair back and leans forward, pressing his lips against her forehead. “Night,” he says.

“Night,” she says back. But when he lets her go, she shifts and turns away from him, sleeping on her side.

He stares at her back in the darkness and feels the weariness battling the concern inside of him.

Eventually the weariness overcomes him.

* * * * *

He doesn’t bring it up again with either Olivia or Crowder as they work the case over the next few days. Cross-referencing the list of bike registrations with the criminal records database does give them quite a list of potential suspects to clear.

He talks to possible witnesses who lived above the alley where the vic was found, and many of them say they were awakened around 2 a.m. by the sound of a loud, rattling motorcycle circling in the alley and then gunning away.

No one got up to look out the window though.

It’s a curious sense of frustration. He can feel the killer there, just out of their reach, but they can’t quite catch up fast enough to get a glimpse.

He’s still working through the case files, and talking to Olivia by phone as she and Crowder try to work the Brooklyn cases in tandem with the Manhattan dump.

He knows better than to bring up Clay again, but he starts asking around. And what he hears… doesn’t alleviate his worry.

Crowder’s partner was caught up in a sting a few years ago to catch dirty cops blackmailing hookers for sex in exchange for leniency and protection. That creates a hard, twisting ball of anger in Elliot’s gut. Crowder was investigated and cleared in the operation, but Elliot still feels wary. How did he not know what his partner was up to?

Jesus. If Olivia ever went off the deep end, he’d know it. Wouldn’t he? He’d fucking know.

And frankly, he’s not naïve enough to think that if she _did_ make a big mistake, he’d somehow find his halo and turn her in. He wouldn’t. Not right away. He’d protect her, and he knows it.

Or maybe he thinks that way because he can’t believe on any level that she’d ever be involved in something that would actively hurt other people.

“His wife died a few years back,” a detective he knows from the six-eight tells him. “Cancer. She was pretty young. It really tore him up. He was never the same after that. Then his partner was arrested and he’s been a lone wolf ever since.”

That’s a lot of pain to take over a few years. He knows. When he and Kathy had been separated, he’d nearly lost Olivia too, and it had wrecked him. He hadn’t known which way was up from day to day.

When he looks back now, he can see how much punishment he’d been dealing out in that time. To himself, to other people. It would have been really easy to feel sorry for himself and cross that line.

He wishes they had just a little bit more to go on with this case.

There just isn’t enough evidence, and he can’t trust his feelings. Not where Olivia is concerned.

He sighs.

* * * *

Olivia wakes before her alarm goes off, and she takes a moment to get her bearings.

The early October sun is already shining through her window blind, making the faux wooden slats glow orange. It feels strangely different than it has all summer. But maybe that’s because Halloween is coming, and seeing all the decorations, all the costumes in store windows, of skeletons and zombies and witches…

It’s eerie in a way, as they track a killer.

Next to her, Elliot is still sleeping, his breath deep and slow. She watches his chest rise and fall. He has been on eggshells around her the last few days, and she knows it’s because of their conversation about Clay.

She just can’t… He’s basing his worry on so little. She’s worked with Clay for months now. She trusts him. He’s just not… He’s not some secret psychopath killing prostitutes by night and wearing a badge by day. He’s just not.

And Elliot has always found reasons to mistrust the men she’s been close to over the years. Whether he was proven right in the end or not.

His morning beard is dark against his jaw, and she wants to reach out and run her fingers over it, feel the roughness. Maybe lean over and press her mouth to his until he wakes up and rolls her underneath him. Gives her razor burn all over her neck.

She smiles. And it fades.

This was never not going to be hard. They can’t be objective with each other. And maybe it wouldn’t have mattered if they’d started sleeping together or not. That lack of objectivity has been there a very long time. But the new feelings don’t help…

Her alarm clock clicks over, one minute away from blaring away. So she does reach out and slides her fingers over his jaw. The stubble catches against her fingertips, and she moves them lightly over his neck.

His eyes open, and he focuses on her. His mouth turns up.

She smiles back. “Hey,” she says, quietly. “Huang gives us his profile today.”

He smiles broader.

The alarm clicks and then blares.

* * * *

They’re quiet on the ride in.

While he doesn’t say anything to her, she can feel the tension in the air between them. He hasn’t just given up on his suspicions, just because she told him to. She’s known him long enough to know that’s not over.

It’s simply on hold.

She’s been trying to make her mind go to that place, where she can see things from Elliot’s point-of-view and ask herself, ‘Well, what if?’

But it’s not working.

There is no part of her that thinks Clay is capable of this crime.

In the darker, tinier part of her brain, there is a voice whispering about Dick Finley and Dean Porter and Karen and all the other people she’s known over her career, especially men, that she’d trusted and then realized she’d been unaware of the half of it.

She tries to breathe through it. Her cell phone rings.

When she answers, it’s Clay, and she immediately feels self-conscious and hates it.

“Hey,” she says. “You already there?”

“No,” he says. “Not even close. Someone called in a tip about a biker working for that nightclub a few blocks down from the alley. They said he’s a bouncer and he’s always bugging the women walking by or loitering. I’m going to go check it out.”

“You’re going to miss the profile?” she asks, surprised. She feels Elliot’s gaze on her.

“Well, only one of us needs to be there, right?” Clay says. “You go and listen to it, get the report. I’ll read it later. I don’t want to miss this opportunity. The club manager is only there in the mornings.”

“Okay,” she relents. “Fair enough.”

“Besides,” he says, lowering his voice. “I don’t want to stand in some little room fending off Stabler’s eagle-eyed glare for an hour.”

“Shut up,” she says with a smile, and she knows it shows in her voice.

Clay laughs and hangs up, and she snaps her phone closed and bites her lip, waiting.

“Crowder isn’t coming?” Elliot asks immediately. She can tell he’s trying to keep the accusation out of his voice, but she knows where his mind is.

“He doesn’t need to,” she argues. “He’s running down a tip. There’s no point in both of us being there to hear it when he can just read the report later.”

Elliot looks at her for a long time, and she glances away. “Watch where you’re going,” she mutters, motioning at the road.

He goes silent and drives, but she can feel the accusation in the air anyway.

* * * *

“The fact is, I’m having a hard time distinguishing this killer,” George says to them.

Olivia sips her coffee and looks at the papers in front of him. “How so?”

“He has the traits of both an organized and disorganized killer. The murders are planned, even if he might have no specific target in mind when he goes hunting. Lucy was a specific target. She was killed in her home in the morning, just before she was going to leave for the day. The killer knew her and where to find her.”

“Somehow he knew she was talking to us,” she admits, and when Elliot turns to stare at her, she ignores him.

“He could have been watching when you and Detective Crowder were questioning the women,” George offers. “Because he’s very interested in the investigation itself.”

“You think he might write letters eventually?” Elliot asks him. “Like BTK and the Zodiac killer?”

George hesitates. “If it goes on long enough, it’s certainly possible, but he seems less interested in public attention than he does in the police themselves. He’s bitter. He doesn’t like the police, and I’d wager you’ll find that he has a history of confrontation with them.”

Olivia furrows her brows.

George continues, “He’s not impulsive. He picks carefully and stages carefully, but he leaves very little evidence. He doesn’t rape. His M.O. is strangely… varied. His control over his victims is not complete, which suggests disorganization. He strangles but he’s also drowned, stabbed and shot his victims. The method of murder doesn’t seem important to him, and when he finds a victim difficult to control, he simply switches methods.”

“What about the religious stuff?” she asks.

George shakes his head slowly. “To be honest, he only shows a cursory knowledge. It wouldn’t be the first time an offender has used religion to justify his own urges, but generally religious killers tend to be less aware of their own pathology and deeply disturbed. This killer seems to be using the religion as more of a… diversion.”

“Diversion?”

“I think he’s trying to act like he thinks a serial killer should act, but without feeling his own specific desires for ritual and power.”

“He’s… faking it?” Elliot looks dumbfounded, and she feels the same way.

“His real target is the police. His taunting and his targets indicate a level of anger and resentment on a level on par with those killers who hate women. He has issues with women certainly. He sees them as disposable. But they are a means to an end for him. He wants to embarrass the police.”

There is silence as she and Elliot take that in.

And then Elliot stirs beside her, uneasily, and he lowers his voice, asking, “George, could this guy…” He hesitates, glancing at her and then back again. “Could this guy _be_ law enforcement?”

She immediately stiffens, her stomach tightening.

“Yes,” George says, earnestly. “He could. In fact, he shows more knowledge about criminal psychology and police procedure than he does about religion. He’s only choosing the most obvious passages of the bible for his message. Passages that sound ominous and reflect an idea that he’s fighting a holy war, but which are open to interpretation. He just finds them pretty.”

Her mouth runs dry.

“Maybe,” Elliot keeps going, his voice quiet. “He sees himself as… an avenging angel?”

She grits her teeth.

“Sure,” George says. “But not quite that literal. He’s not delusional in that way. He knows who he is. It’s a message he’s chosen, but it’s only to inflate his ego. He doesn’t believe it.”

“Race and age are typical?” Olivia asks, trying to divert away from Elliot’s train of thought.

George tilts his head. “White male, yes. But he’s either fairly young or he’s only recently started killing. The fact that he’s left living victims shows inexperience. The poisoning of Lucy bothers me. He either couldn’t handle her in any other way, or he knew her personally and knew the only way to get to her.”

“So, again, it could very well be a cop who had extensive interaction with her. Someone who knew she was cooperating and would be a danger to him?”

Olivia wants to knock him upside the head.

But George looks pensive and then nods slowly. “Yes.”

* * * *

“You were deliberately trying to weigh the discussion toward Clay,” she accuses Elliot when they get into an empty, quiet hallway.

“And I think I was justified in doing so,” he says, holding her gaze as she stops in front of him and confronts him. “The profile didn’t exactly clear him, Olivia.”

“Clay didn’t do this. We’re wasting time by fixating on him instead of other suspects!”

“He fits the profile! He owns a bike that fits the make and model of the exhaust burns on our vic’s leg!”

She stares at him. “He doesn’t fit the profile, El! All George said was that the killer _could_ be a cop! I’ve never seen one hint that Clay is bitter about the job. Or that he hates other cops.”

“His partner was dirty,” he states, eyes hard.

She’s taken aback, and she blinks at him, mouth open. “So?” she finally grinds out. “That doesn’t mean he is.”

“Olivia,” Elliot says, his voice just as tight and barely-controlled as hers had been. “I’ve done a lot of shit for you over the years. And I did it because you and I are the same. We’re the same. And I love you. Even when I didn’t love you, I loved you. And if you’d done something dirty, I’d have probably either covered it up, or I’d have been right there with you.”

“No,” she says. “You wouldn’t have. You’d have talked me into doing the right thing, and if I refused to listen, you’d have turned me in.”

He just stares at her then, and she feels a rivulet of unease, as all the excuses he’s made for her over the years—all the excuses they’ve made for each other—all the times they’ve gone over the line to protect each other, all of it comes trickling back to her.

“He lost his wife, and then he lost his partner,” Elliot says, softer now. “That’s a trigger if I’ve ever seen one.” He pauses. “And I should fucking know.”

She stares at him. “It’s not him,” she says.

“We have to at least question him on it. See how he reacts. See what happens.”

“I trust him, Elliot,” she insists. “I know him!”

He takes a deep breath and lets it out and then looks at her uneasily, and she can tell he’s about to say something that will cut her. “Don’t get offended,” he starts, and she rolls her eyes at him. “But you don’t have the best track record when it comes to men you’re attracted to. You can’t always see the crazy ones.”

It does cut. It punches her in the gut, and even though she knows it’s true, it feels like he’s stabbed her in the back. It brings heat to her skin and her eyes and she feels too wound up. She glares at him. “I’m attracted to you. Does that mean you’re a serial killer?”

He clenches his jaw. “We have to clear him, Olivia. And you know it. I don’t care how much you like him.”

“This has nothing to do with me _liking_ him, and everything to do with the fact that I’ve worked with him nearly everyday the past few months. I might choose _crazy guys_ in my love life—“ And here she gives him a pointed look. “But I don’t choose bad partners!”

It’s a hit meant to wound him the way he wounded her, and it’s accurate. He doesn’t move, but she sees the flinch in his eyes.

He gets quiet then. And calm. And that’s how she knows she really hit the mark. It’s both irritating and guilt-provoking. She hates hurting him, but she hates the way he just gives up when she finally hits back hard enough to hurt.

“Let’s talk about this tonight. At home,” he says, quietly.

“I’d rather be alone,” she says, just as quietly. “I think we need a break tonight.”

He doesn’t call her back when she walks away.

* * * *

He lies awake that night, feeling conflicted.

He misses Olivia. He wants her there, but he doesn’t want to give in. Crowder is a viable suspect. She just can’t see it.

It’s his job to go where he thinks the solution is, but if he does… Is it going to tear he and Olivia apart?

For that matter, is he really being objective about this? She’s right, he doesn’t like Crowder, and he wants to make up all the reasons he doesn’t, and have them be justified. But realistically, he knows, it just boils down to the fact that Olivia likes him. She likes being partners with Crowder, and it feels like some part of her is being stolen away from him.

But he needs to decide. Because it isn’t just about his pride. It’s about Olivia’s safety. It’s about a murderer who needs to be put away.

He’s put his concern for her safety ahead of their relationship before, and while she’d been furious with him, she’d forgiven him in the end.

He just has to hope she’ll do the same this time.

* * * *

“What’s the plan?” Fin asks him when he walks in the next day.

Elliot glances around. “You seen Liv this morning?”

“Nah, not yet. But she usually goes to the Brooklyn precinct first to check in since she’s still on a temp assignment.”

Elliot licks his lips and nods.

Fin studies him. “What’s up with you?”

Elliot takes a deep breath. “You read the profile George worked up?”

“Yeah.”

“I want to question Crowder on this thing.”

Fin’s brows shoot up. “You feeling something funny with him?”

“A little, yeah.”

Fin hesitates and then, “You sure it’s not just that he’s been watching your partner’s back for the past few months?”

“No,” Elliot admits. “I’m not sure. But he owns a bike that matches the model on the list for the exhaust burns. And he knows the women being killed. And there’s just… too many coincidences to let me rest easy.”

Fin thinks about that and then shrugs. “So, let’s go.”

Elliot hesitates. “He’s a cop, Fin.” As if Fin doesn’t know.

“You here to make friends with Crowder, or you here to solve the case?”

Elliot sighs. “He asked Olivia to be his permanent partner.”

Fin pauses for a long moment at that, and his gaze pierces into Elliot in a way that makes him shift uneasily and look away. “Why would he do that?” Fin asks slowly. “He knows she’s temporary. And she’d never leave SVU.”

Elliot meets his gaze and takes a breath. “She and I… We can’t be partners anymore.”

Fin doesn’t say anything for a moment. He just looks at Elliot, gaze sweeping down. And then, “You sleeping together?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Cap know?”

“Not yet. I thought we’d tell him when we’d decided what to do about it. After the case is over.”

Fin shrugs. “Okay, so he won’t hear it from me.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. So, what are we doing about Crowder?”

“I don’t know.”

“Your call, Stabler. You’re the one that’s gotta live with it.”

Elliot takes a deep breath and glances at Olivia’s empty desk. It all tugs at him.

“Let’s go,” he finally says. “Let’s clear the bastard so we can move on.”

Fin follows him out.

* * * *

Crowder opens his condo door in jeans and a leather jacket, his keys in his hand. His eyes widen when he recognizes Elliot, and his gaze shifts to Fin standing behind him. “What’s going on?”

“We need to talk,” Elliot states.

Crowder’s gaze shifts between them again and his jaw goes tight. “I’m on my way out. Let’s talk at the office.”

Elliot steps up into the doorway, forcing him back inside. “Let’s talk here.”

Fin follows him in, and Crowder’s eyes immediately narrow. “What the hell, Stabler!”

“Why didn’t you tell me you owned a bike that’s on the list for our exhaust burn evidence?”

Crowder just looks at him for a long moment, his blue eyes intense. And then he shrugs. “Why would I? I’m not out there killing prostitutes.”

“Yeah? I gotta tell you… I’m not so sure.” He watches Crowder’s face turn to stone.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Crowder demands, and his voice is low and dangerous. He is very, very still.

“Does it look like we’re laughing?” Fin asks, and Elliot wants to smirk a bit, but he’s past that.

Crowder glances at Fin and then back at Elliot. “Does Olivia know you’re here?” And the way he says it, like he’s holding something over Elliot, it makes a thread of anger work its way into his gut.

He takes a quick step forward, trying to drive Crowder back, but Clay doesn’t move. “No,” he growls. “But she knows what I’m thinking.”

Crowder glares sullenly at him. “And what are you thinking?”

“That you own a bike that might have been used in the commission of a crime. That your partner was dirty and drummed out of the department, and maybe you’re a little pissed off about that. That you’re blaming the police and the girls who told on him. That your middle name and your tattoo and those business cards are just all a little too… cute. A little too much of a coincidence.” He smiles, coldly. “You read the profile, right?”

Crowder holds his gaze, but his expression is guarded. He licks his lips. “You’re wrong,” he says, and there’s a little uneasiness in his eyes now.

“I hope I am,” Elliot says, raising an eyebrow. “For Olivia’s sake, anyway.”

“You’re wasting time,” Crowder growls.

Fin steps forward then. “Then let us clear you, and we can get back to the real investigation.”

Crowder’s shoulders rise and fall slowly with his breaths, and he looks between them. “What can I do to help?” he asks, but it sounds forced. Quiet.

“Let us take a look around,” Elliot says immediately.

Again, Crowder hesitates, and there’s a creak as he shifts and the leather of his jacket tightens. “Fine,” he finally says. “Look around.”

Fin passes behind Elliot and starts walking further into the condo. Elliot keeps his gaze glued to Crowder for a moment, seeing how he reacts. But Crowder simply stares right back and doesn’t react at all. He is perfectly still and neutral.

And that, more than anything, sends a prickly feeling up Elliot’s spine.

“You armed?” Elliot asks.

Crowder glares at him, still hesitating, and then he moves slowly and pulls the side of his jacket back revealing a black holster and his service pistol.

Elliot reaches out and takes it. Crowder keeps his glare on him the entire time.

He and Fin start searching then. Not too in depth. But they open drawers and scan rooms, and in the bathroom, Fin holds up a box of band-aids and they glance at each other but shrug. Band-aids were used by the suspect to disguise his face, but Band-aids are probably languishing in every single bathroom in the U.S.

On the kitchen counter, Elliot picks up a bible lying there and pages through it. “A little light reading?” he asks, glancing at Crowder.

“I bought it so I could study it for this case,” Crowder says. “I was trying to see inside of the guy.”

Elliot thumbs to the most recent page that was left in the Manhattan vic’s mouth, and the pertinent passage, about Michael and his angels, is highlighted in yellow. He glances up again.

Crowder clearly knows what he sees. “Like I said…” he repeats.

Elliot thumbs through it a bit more, and then he sets it down and looks at a door he knows must lead to the garage. And hopefully Crowder’s bike. “Your bike out there?”

“Yeah.”

Elliot starts heading toward the door, and Crowder says, “You really think you have enough evidence to get a warrant?”

That brings Elliot up short. He glances back. “We don’t need one. You agreed to let us search.”

“I’m about two seconds away from revoking that permission.”

“Why?” Elliot asks, trying to sound innocent, but knowing he’s got a hint of condescension there as well. “Come on, the profile says the killer thinks he’s smarter than the police, right? You got something to hide?”

“No,” Clay answers. “But I’m beginning to think you don’t care if I do or not. You’re angry at me for an entirely different reason.” He stares at Elliot, and Elliot knows exactly what he’s insinuating.

“I’m not worried about you and Olivia,” he snaps back. “She and I have got thirteen years behind us. You’ve known her for three months.”

“Yeah?” Crowder leans casually against his kitchen counter. “And yet you couldn’t make a move in thirteen years? I made one after a month.”

 _He… what?_ Anger bursts inside of Elliot, and he grits his teeth and tenses his muscles to keep himself from launching across the room. _He’s trying to distract you_ , he thinks. _That means something._ He must show his anger though, because Crowder smirks.

“And you still didn’t get anywhere, did you?” Elliot retorts, because his anger and his trust in Olivia aren’t really related. He trusts her.

Crowder doesn’t reply to that, but his jaw tightens again. Elliot relaxes.

He opens the garage door, and feels along the wall for a switch. The room floods with light. It’s a small garage, with a few workbenches and some plastic storage bins, and three motorcycles standing in a row. “Fin!” he calls.

There are footsteps behind him, and Fin appears. They walk down the steps and into the closed garage. There are two Harley Fatboys and one dirt bike.

He glances at the bikes, and then back at Crowder who is now standing in the doorway. “These all yours?”

“No,” Crowder says. “The black Harley and the dirt bike are mine. The red is my former partner’s bike. He doesn’t have anywhere else to store it.”

Elliot pulls on some latex gloves and steps up to the black Harley, hunching down to look over the exhaust pipes. Fin moves past him and walks to one of the workbenches.

The bike looks clean. Even the tires are lacking road dust, and it’s clear it’s been washed recently. He pulls a small flashlight from his pocket and starts examining the double exhaust pipes. They’re shiny chrome and he can see his own image in them as he works.

Toward the bend of the pipes, where they twist out of the engine area, there are several scratches and black matter inside of them. On the underside of the upper pipe is something else…

Something burned on and seared.

“Fin,” he says.

Fin appears next to him, and Elliot points the light on the tiny area of the exhaust.

“What?” Crowder demands. “You didn’t find shit, Stabler!”

“Stay there,” Elliot commands, putting some warning in his voice as he glances up.

Fin takes a small plastic bag out of his pocket and then a knife, and he scrapes a bit of the residue into the bag. Elliot watches as he methodically crushes each of three small vials inside the bag and mixes the chemicals along with the sample from the bike.

The resulting mash turns pink, indicating blood.

They exchange glances.

“Jesus,” Crowder exclaims, watching them. “That could be animal blood! Hell, I’ve burned myself on that goddamn exhaust at least a dozen times!”

Elliot stands up. “Detective, you can come with us willingly, or we can put you in cuffs, but you’re coming down to the precinct for questioning. Now.”

Crowder looks at him with an outraged expression. “This is bullshit, Stabler! You got a problem with me, we can work that out like men. I’m not a fucking murderer!”

Elliot is about to argue with him, when Fin steps forward. “Screw this. We have enough suspicion for an arrest.” He takes his cuffs out and goes toward Crowder. “You have the right to remain silent,” he starts, and Clay jerks backward.

“Hold on!”

Elliot draws his gun and holds it on him. “Stop right there.”

Crowder looks at him, astonishment in his eyes, and something deeper. Harder. Much more full of rage. “I can’t believe this.”

“Believe it,” Elliot says, watching his hands. Fin continues with the Miranda rights, and Clay looks between them with an amazed expression.

“Guess you weren’t smarter than the police after all,” Elliot quips, as Fin gets him cuffed and then starts him up the stairs and out of the house.

* * * *

Olivia is there when they march Crowder in, and Elliot braces himself.

She takes one look at Crowder in cuffs, and her mouth drops open and she glares at Elliot with a betrayed look that cuts him until he wants to wince.

“What the hell are you _doing_?” she demands.

“Talking,” Elliot says, letting Fin take Crowder toward an interview room as he stops to deal with Olivia.

Crowder says nothing, but he gives Olivia a tight-lipped smile as he walks past. She watches him and then turns on Elliot.

“You _arrested_ him? That’s not talking, Elliot!”

“There was blood on the exhaust pipes of his bike, Olivia.”

She hesitates at that. “It could be animal blood,” she protests. “What test did you use?”

“Look,” he says, trying to stay calm. “We’re bringing his bike in. We’ll test it. If it’s not our vic’s, or if it’s animal, we’ll let him go, okay?”

“This is a waste of time,” she growls at him. “I thought you were trying to be objective about this? Is this how you’re going to act when I have a permanent new partner?”

“No,” he says, although, to be honest, he’s not really sure. “I’m just going to question him and then… we’ll see what happens.”

“Your criminal sense is off on this!” she argues. “Your jealousy is throwing it off.”

“I’m trying to protect you!”

“I don’t _need_ your protection! I need your trust!”

He doesn’t get a chance to reply, because Cragen comes out of his office then and his voice splits the squad room, demanding to know what’s going on.

“I’m questioning detective Crowder in the serial murder case,” Elliot tells him.

“He’s wasting our time,” Olivia insists. “Clay isn’t a killer.”

“What do you got?” Cragen demands, looking directly at Elliot.

“Blood on his bike’s exhaust pipes. Huang’s profile said the perp could be a cop.”

“What about Pam Spencer?” Olivia demands suddenly. “She was attacked by the guy and lived. She saw his face, and she never identified Clay! She said the guy had brown eyes!”

“Eye color is easy to change,” Cragen says. “You know that, detective.”

Elliot pauses though. He looks at her. “She saw Crowder that night? When you questioned her?”

Olivia opens her mouth to answer, and then she closes it again. Her face seems to fall. “No,” she says, suddenly a little breathless and soft. “He told me to go in by myself. He thought I’d have better luck getting her to talk if he wasn’t there.” She furrows her brow and brings a hand to her mouth.

“Olivia,” Elliot says, softly. “I have to talk to him. You know I do.”

She looks away from him. “He didn’t do it,” she says, but her vehemence sounds weaker. “I know he didn’t…”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he wants to touch her, but Cragen is standing right there.

“Go,” Cragen orders him. “Talk to detective Crowder.” He glances at Olivia. “Let him do it, Olivia. Go find something else to do. I don’t want you watching. You’re too personally involved.”

She lifts her gaze and looks at both of them before her jaw tightens and her eyes get hard. Elliot expects her to say something to put them both in their place, but she just shakes her head and grabs her jacket off her chair, and then she stalks out of the squad room with a determination he’s rarely seen.

He glances at Cragen and then takes a deep breath and heads toward Crowder.

* * * *

When he walks into the interview room, Crowder looks up and then leans back almost casually in his chair and gives him a wry look. “Really? You’re the one questioning me?”

Elliot gives him a deliberately cheerful look. “You got a problem with that?”

“You don’t think there’s maybe a personal conflict here?”

Elliot shrugs and shakes his head like it’s never even occurred to him. “No,” he says. “I don’t.” He cocks his head and then put his fists on the table and leans down to look Crowder in the eye. “You think I’m the kind of cop that’d lie and put an innocent man away, just because I don’t like him?”

“I don’t know what kind of cop you are,” Crowder counters. “I gave you the benefit of the doubt because you’re Olivia’s partner, but even her judgment isn’t infallible.”

“Obviously,” Elliot states.

They stare at each other.

“Maybe I should call my lawyer,” Crowder says slowly, his gaze steady and calm.

Elliot tightens at that, but stays calm. “You think you need one?” He’s in interrogation mode now…

Crowder’s a cop. He should know this schtick, and he shouldn’t say one word until his union rep or his lawyer is in the room, but the thing about cops is… they think they know the system. They think they can work it. The thing about psycho killers is… they think the same thing.

“I didn’t do anything,” Crowder says, almost too casually.

Elliot shrugs. “So, let’s talk. Clear this up. Okay?”

Crowder doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t ask for his lawyer either.

Elliot pulls the chair out across from Crowder and sits. He puts his elbows on the table and twists his hands together. He looks directly into Crowder’s eyes. “You like your job?”

Crowder looks right back. “Yeah. Took me a long time to make detective, and I like it.”

Elliot nods. “You good at it?”

Crowder bristles a bit, but he covers. “I make my fair share of solves.”

Elliot nods again. “You had a rough time with your partner a few years back.”

Crowder’s jaw tenses. “Yeah, well, you think you know somebody…” He glares.

“And you never knew what he was doing, huh? He was part of the biggest scandal the Brooklyn police have had in 20 years, and you never knew a thing, huh?”

Crowder shifts in his seat and swallows, and Elliot can see sweat beading up on his forehead. It’s involuntary.

“I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know what it was.”

“See,” Elliot counters, and he knows before he says it that he shouldn’t, but he can’t help it. “If that were my partner? I’d have known.”

“Yeah?” Crowder asks, and he leans forward, getting his strength back. “You think so, huh?” And there’s a smug tone there that makes anger start creeping up Elliot’s back.

Elliot stands up and walks back and forth. Ignoring the way Crowder stares at him. “All the girls involved in that case are slowly being killed. Just when they start to get useful to the investigation, they somehow end up dead.”

Crowder looks away.

“And then,” Elliot continues. “Olivia joins, and suddenly there’s new accountability, right? So, there’s another set of eyes. And then the taunting starts. With the business cards and the bible verses.”

“That started before Olivia came,” Crowder argues. “The posing was a form of taunting. And the business cards started after the press got a hold of the story.”

“Yeah,” Elliot muses. “That was smart thinking.”

Crowder exhales and grits his teeth.

“The bible verses have to do with Michael fighting the dragon, and, oddly, you seem to have a thing for Michael and his evil-fighting ways.” Elliot motions toward him. “Because that’s not a cheap tattoo. That sucker cost some big bucks.”

Crowder leans back, but folds his arms across his chest, guarding. “My wife got it for me,” he says, quietly. “It was a gift.”

Elliot nods but dismisses it. “And your middle name is Michael.” He shrugs. “Interesting.” And then I find out you have a bike that is capable of matching the exhaust burns on our most recent vic’s leg—which, by the way, you conveniently neglected to mention to me—and, coincidentally, there’s blood on the exhaust, right where the measurement is perfect.”

Crowder is seething. Elliot can see it. But he stays tucked in, with his arms folded and his head down, and he says nothing. Elliot has to be careful now, because one false move will get Crowder crying for a lawyer.

“So,” Elliot says. “You can see why I have questions?”

Crowder finally looks up. “I haven’t washed that bike in over a year. I could have picked that blood up anywhere. It’s probably roadkill that I ran over in the dark.”

“Yeah, well, it’s in the lab right now, so we’ll know exactly what it is very soon.”

Crowder glowers.

Elliot tilts his head, thinking, and then he leans down again, hands on the table, and looks right into Crowder’s eyes. “You know, you’d be a lot more convincing if you weren’t lying to me.”

“I’m not lying!”

“That bike was newly washed,” Elliot says. “There wasn’t even any road dust on the tires. I saw wax on the exhaust pipes.”

“What?” Crowder stares at him. “That’s… not possible.”

“Or,” Elliot offers. “It is possible, and you’re lying.”

“I haven’t washed that bike in a year!”

Elliot snorts. “So, what’s your story then? Someone broke into your garage and took your bike, and… secretly washed it?”

Crowder looks blind-sided, and he stares at Elliot and then looks away. “I… “ He falls silent.

Elliot smiles.

* * * *

Olivia sits in the Brooklyn squad car she took to the sixteenth and stares at the concrete pillars of the parking garage through her windshield.

She’s angry at Elliot, almost overbearingly so, and it’s eating at her. There is a voice, too, inside her head that says _Well… maybe. Maybe you don’t know Clay that well. Maybe you are that damaged._

If he’s innocent, Elliot will clear him, and she knows that. Elliot has his faults, especially as a cop, but he’d never deliberately put an innocent man in prison. No matter how much he disliked the man, or wanted him out of the way.

She trusts that in the same way she trusts that Clay is not a killer.

Well, almost. She’s still known Elliot for 13 years, and Clay for 3 months. And she knows Elliot in ways now that, frankly, she’s rarely known in anyone else.

She clings to her anger though, and maybe it’s fear that’s driving it. Because she feels it down deep. Fear that he’s right.

 _He’s wrong._

She rubs tiredly at her face for a moment and breathes in the silence of the car, and then she sticks the key in the ignition and turns it.

Fine. If he’s going to focus on Clay, then she’s just going to have to help Clay prove Elliot wrong.

* * * *

“You have a thing for Olivia?” Elliot asks, maybe because he can’t help it.

Crowder snorts in amusement. “I find her attractive, yeah.”

“So, what was the plan, huh? Impress her with your investigative skills? Or would she have ended up one of your victims too? Is that what you were setting up with the business cards?”

“I’m not the killer.” Crowder is calm. “She and I are partners.”

“Temporary partners,” Elliot corrects.

Crowder lifts his gaze to Elliot’s. “We were partners. And I found her attractive, yeah, but she’s in love with someone else.” He stares pointedly at Elliot. “In fact, she told me a lot about the guy. You wanna hear all about him? I have a name. You want that too?” He stares until Elliot feels the sweat break out on his own forehead. Cragen is watching through the two-way mirror, and they both know it. Crowder leans forward. “You wanna keep going down this road, detective?”

Elliot clenches his teeth and forces his breathing to stay even, but he backs off a few steps.

* * * *

She’s driving toward Brooklyn as her mind is cataloguing all the events that Elliot has listed in his suspicion. It’s circumstantial… but it’s also substantial. All she can do is shake her head.

 _Nope. No. Just… no._

She remembers Clay’s words in the car at the hospital the night Pam Dwyer was attacked and survived. When they’d met Roland in the lobby and Clay had told her about how he’d lost his partner.

 _He was my partner, you know? It was hard to realize he had that side to him._

She knows.

She stops at a red light and blows a breath out.

Then she blinks.

Pam. The vic that survived. The one who saw the killer’s face and found it familiar. The vic that Clay avoided…

Olivia grabs her notebook off the car seat and thumbs through it, looking for Pam’s personal info. She can call Pam. Go to see her. Show her some photos. If she doesn’t choose Clay, then she can take that back to Elliot.

If she does…

Well, she’ll have to live with it.

There’s no answer when she dials Pam’s number, so she leaves a message asking her to call. Then she turns the car around to head back to her own apartment.

She’ll pick up all the notes and case files she’s taken home over the last few days and then, she’ll go to the Brooklyn office and work on things there. When dusk comes, she’ll hit the streets again and look for witnesses. Look for Pam. And this time she won’t take apathy as an answer.

* * * *

“You lost your wife a few years ago,” Elliot states.

Crowder flinches at that. He looks down and says nothing.

“That had to be hard,” Elliot presses.

Crowder glances up. “Did Olivia tell you that?” he looks almost hurt.

Elliot doesn’t react. He paces back and forth. “There were plenty of people willing to tell me about you, detective. About how you’ve never been quite right since her death.”

“Why would I be? When someone you love dies, it changes you.”

Elliot nods, softer now. “It does. It changes you. You become a different person.”

Crowder’s teeth almost click together in his zeal to clench them.

Elliot continues. His tone sympathetic. “It’s understandable,” he says. Urges. “That you lost it a bit. Who wouldn’t? But then what happened? It just kept escalating on you? It got out of control?”

“No,” Crowder seethes. “It killed me, but it didn’t make me a killer.”

Elliot chances a closer proximity. He moves around the table and leans against it, just to Crowder’s left side. He tries to stay relaxed. He looks down at the other detective.

“Look,” he says, softly. “You’re not a bad guy. I know that, and Olivia knows that. You just had some pain you had to get rid of, and I get it. And then it got out of control, and women died. Just tell me about it. You’ll feel better.” He pauses and then tilts his head so he can see Crowder’s face. “You’ll feel like a good cop again.”

And suddenly, Crowder goes crazy.

Crowder explodes out of the chair, and Elliot leaps out of the way, the corner of the table digging into the back of his thigh as he scrambles.

“Bullshit!” Crowder roars. He isn’t heading towards Elliot though. He’s backing away, every muscle in his body tensed and ready for a fight. “Yeah, I lost it! My fucking wife died! I was miserable, but I didn’t kill anyone!”

Elliot steadies himself against the wall and immediately holds his hand up with the ‘ok’ signal, so Fin and Cragen don’t burst into the room and interrupt the flow he has going. He stays on the balls of his feet though, and every sense feels hyperaware.

Crowder moves sideways, slowly, and Elliot matches him, keeping the table between them. “Hey,” Elliot says. “Trust me, I get it. It builds up inside of you, you know? And it just has to come out somehow.”

Crowder bares his teeth and snarls, “So, what kind of pain did _you_ feel, huh? Because there are a whole lot of people who were willing to talk about you too, Stabler. You may be getting divorced now, but your wife left you a few years ago, didn’t she? And you ‘lost it’ too.”

Elliot feels a twisting thread of anger spinning inside of him. Mixed with apprehension. Crowder is going from defensive to predatory. His direction changing from backing away to circling. His shoulders going from down to up. His gaze sliding from rage to something calmer. Colder.

“And then Olivia left you too,” Crowder continues. “And you really fell apart, didn’t you?”

Elliot feels the familiar discomfort of being interrogated. He circles with Crowder, keeping his movements deliberate and confident. “This isn’t about me, Crowder. It’s your life on the line.”

“I bet you did a lot of things you regret now, didn’t you?” Crowder growls.

“We all do,” Elliot says, trying to direct the questioning back to Crowder and calm the explosion.

“So what did that pain do to you?” Crowder demands, but his tone is mocking. “Your wife was gone, but you expected that, right? You knew she’d go one day, because they all do. But Olivia… That pissed you off, didn’t it? That took your fucking feet right out from under you, because she was the one who wasn’t ever supposed to leave.” He keeps circling. “But she did.”

The rage is rising in Elliot’s gut, and he clenches his teeth. “Sit the fuck down, Crowder!”

“She wasn’t supposed to get sick of your shit, was she? She was supposed to take it all and wait around for you, and when she didn’t, it just sent you spinning! And no one wanted to be around you then, did they?”

“Shut up!” There is a heat wave in Elliot’s brain that is stirring up his heart and muddying his vision.

“And now she’s leaving you again. Letting you rot here while she moves on and finds someone better. And you know it. You know your time with her is gone now. She’s hanging on, but she’ll leave. Because they all fucking leave you, and rightfully so!”

Elliot lunges at him, and the only thing he feels is a burning desire to deliver destruction. He wants Crowder’s blood spilling on the floor and covering his hands, and he wants to feel Crowder’s bones shattering under his fists, and he hits Crowder’s bulk with a satisfying hit that radiates pain through his entire body.

They land against the wall with a grunt and Elliot can hear himself shouting something, but he isn’t even sure what the words are saying, and Crowder’s hands are digging into his skin, tearing at it, scratching, trying to hit, while Elliot tries to hit back, and then he’s being dragged off, and he can’t stop fighting.

“Detective, stand down!” Cragen’s voice is hard in his ear. And he tries to obey, but he’s so past the trigger-point that it isn’t even funny. And he feels more hands on him, and they start dragging him out of the door, and when he looks back, Crowder is laughing.

It’s a long, loud, almost hysterical laughter that sends a shiver down Elliot’s spine. They stare at each other, even as Elliot is going out the door, and Crowder gives him a cold, delighted smile that freezes the blood in his veins.

* * * *

As she’s climbing the stairs to her apartment, she brushes shoulders with a man coming down.

“Olivia?”

She jerks her head up, and she’s looking into the eyes of Clay’s ex-partner, Roland.

“Roland!” she exclaims, surprised. “What…”

“I came to see you,” he says, eyes serious and worried. “I heard Clay’s address on the scanner, and then a few of the boys at the old precinct told me he’d been arrested for these prostitute killings.”

She exhales and lowers her voice. “Yeah,” she says, softly. “He was arrested on suspicion. But most of the evidence is circumstantial. And I know the lab results will clear him when they come in. You know he didn’t do this.”

Roland seems to wince a bit, and then he swallows. His gaze meets hers. “I have some information about Clay that I think you ought to know,” he says resignedly.

She feels her heart sink.

* * * *

“What the hell was _that_?” Cragen roars at him, as Fin slams him down in a chair and then glares.

Elliot nearly jumps back up again, but Fin gives him a warning look and Elliot finally feels his senses coming back. “I need to get back in there,” he insists. “He’s cracking!”

“The only person cracking in there was you!” Cragen says angrily. “Jesus, Elliot!”

Elliot looks between them and then takes a breath. His heart slows, and he leans back into the chair. “Okay,” he says. Surrenders. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m okay.”

Cragen studies him with a worried, irritated expression. “While you were in there, Warner came by with the results of the lab tests. It’s too soon for DNA, but the blood on the bike was human. And it was the same blood type as our vic, which is different than Detective Crowder’s.”

Elliot feels elation. “So, we got him then!”

“A confession is better. The DNA might not match. And it sounds like he’s laying the groundwork for a defense based on the idea that he wasn’t the one driving his own bike.”

Fin says, “Let me take a crack at him.”

“I can crack him!” Elliot insists.

“You’re making it personal,” Fin accuses.

“It is personal, “ Elliot says, leaning forward again. “And that’s how we’ll get him.”

“He’s never going to confess to you,” Fin argues. “You’ve set yourself up as a rival. Olivia is between you. If I talk to him, he can save face. He doesn’t need to get himself all ruffled up for me.”

Elliot wants to argue, but Cragen says, “Do it,” to Fin. And then he gives Elliot a look that tells him to stay put. Elliot clenches his teeth and stays.

Cragen studies him after Fin leaves and then sighs. “What the hell was all that about?”

“Just an interrogation, Cap.”

Cragen narrows his eyes. “You think I’m an idiot? You think everyone and their mother couldn’t see that it was all about Olivia in there?”

“I…” Elliot trails away, not sure what to say. Or how to defend himself. His mind is a whirlwind of bits from the interrogation and everything else.

Cragen sighs again. “You’re getting divorced, and Olivia is out of the precinct. And I know you two are… “ He pauses and then looks at Elliot almost helplessly. “Is there something I should know?”

Elliot meets his gaze and hesitates. He can’t, in good faith, lie to this man though. Not now. “Yes,” he says.

Cragen exhales slowly and shakes his head. “Okay,” he says. “Stop. Don’t tell me anything else. Not yet. I’m assuming you don’t know what you’re going to do yet, when she comes back to SVU?”

“No,” Elliot says, quietly. “With the case, and everything that’s going on, we just…”

“Alright,” Cragen interrupts. “Don’t tell me anything until then. When I put the paperwork through to get Olivia back, you can let me know.”

Elliot gives him an apologetic smile. “Thanks.”

Cragen gives him an irritated if not affectionate glance. “Yeah, Christ.” He starts to walk away, and Elliot hears him say, “I’m amazed it took you this long, to be honest.”

Elliot huffs out a laugh.

* * * *

“You want something to drink?” she offers Roland, as she closes the door behind him.

“No,” he says, quietly. “I just… I’m not sure if I should even be doing this. Clay has… shit,” he swears and glances down, and Olivia has to struggle to calm her nerves and stay cool.

“What is it?” she asks encouragingly. Roland has a few days growth of beard and he fidgets, his eyes catching hers and then arcing away.

“Clay’s been a friend to me in bad times. He’s my partner, you know?”

She nods and sits on a stool at her kitchen counter. She motions to the other, but he waves it off.

Roland paces a few times in front of her and then stops and looks at her. “You probably… He probably told you about what happened. Or, I don’t know, you probably saw it on the news. The trouble I got into a few years ago.”

“He told me,” she says carefully. “And he’s been trying to help you. You’re still his partner.” She tries for encouragement without passing judgment.

Roland nods and takes a breath and then stills and looks at her. “Clay was the one who was actually doing the crime.”

She stares at him.

He licks his lips nervously and watches her. “I’m not saying I was innocent. I wasn’t. But he was much more involved than anyone realized. I just… I didn’t say anything because I was going down anyway, so why bring him into it? And to be honest… he’s a scary motherfucker when he wants to be. I just…” He trails away.

Olivia feels a decided pressure inside her skull, threatening to break out. She holds up a hand. “Okay, hold on… Clay was black-mailing prostitutes for sex?”

Roland paces some more. “Yes.”

She stares at him for a long moment, and her heart is pounding. _No. No. No._ “We’ve spent months talking to many of the girls involved in that scandal, and none of them… I mean, they didn’t trust him, but none of them said a word about him.”

Roland winces. “It’s just… he was smarter than everyone else. He picked specific girls, girls who were really damaged. Most of them were transient and disappeared before the case broke.”

Disappeared.

Her mouth is dry. She tries to imagine Clay doing what Roland is saying and it just makes her head hurt.

“You don’t believe me,” Roland states.

“It’s not that,” she says, but she has to shake her head like she’s clearing cobwebs. “I just…”

In the silence, she looks up and Roland is looking at her with a mixture of great concern and something else… Something that makes her feel a little nauseated.

“You don’t believe me,” he repeats, almost sadly.

She stands. “Excuse me, I really need some water.” Her mouth is getting drier by the minute.

She walks into her kitchen, taking a glass down from the cupboard. “It’s not that I don’t believe you,” she says. “I’ve just… I’ve worked with him all summer, and I thought…”

“It isn’t fair that he gets off scott-free while I go to prison,” Roland says. His voice sounds angry.

She frowns at that as she fills the glass and takes a sip, looking out the window above her sink as she does. The day is sunny and bright. Too cheerful for this sort of bombshell.

“None of us are innocent,” Roland says. “We all have to pay the price.”

Her frown gets deeper.

And from behind her, at the kitchen doorway, “As you sow, so shall you reap.”

Everything inside of her freezes.

 _As ye sow, so shall ye reap. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. As ye sow…_

Oh god.

She tightens her fingers around her glass, along with every muscle in her body.

And then she whirls.

He is already a blur, rushing toward her with teeth bared.

 _… so shall ye reap,_ she thinks.

And then she is fighting.

* * * *


	20. At Rest

* * * *

Elliot stands and watches Fin question Crowder through the window of the interview room.

He is itching to get back in, but with calmness comes reason. The fact that he let Crowder get to him, provoke him into a reaction, is hard to swallow.

He’s worked on his temper over the years, and even felt he’s gotten better. But Olivia is still the one thing he can’t seem to fix. His hair-trigger concerning her never seems to fade.

Crowder is sitting sprawled in his chair now, calm and sober but wary and sullen.

“So, who else has access to your house?” Fin asks, as if he’s trying to be a friend. “Your ex-partner? The one who stores his bike there?”

Crowder exhales loudly. “Yes,” he answers, and the anger is missing from his tone. “But he’d never…” He stops then, as if he doesn’t want to say the rest. And then he leans forward and puts his elbows on the table and scrubs at his face with his hands.

It is the first sign that the questions are wearing on him in a tiring way.

Elliot watches with tunnel vision.

“Look,” Fin says. “Help us out. This is what we’ve got.” He then opens a file and starts laying out the evidence in photos and reports. “Prostitutes dying. All of whom you know, in one way or another. Through casual contact or through the scandal.” He slaps a stack of photos down of women’s faces.

Crowder stares at the photos with a lost expression.

Fin continues. “We have bible verses and your tattoo. We have a profile that hints the killer might be law enforcement. We have a bike in your garage that fits the burn marks on a victim’s leg. We have blood on that bike that matches the blood type of the victim. We have attempts to wash that blood away.”

Crowder listens quietly and then just shakes his head. “I don’t know what to tell you. I think I need to call my lawyer now.”

Elliot winces. Damn it.

But Fin goes on a little longer, like they all do. “We also have a victim that survived. One who didn’t see you in the hospital, but who claims the killer looked ‘very familiar’.”

Crowder looks up at that, furrowing his brow.

Is he realizing there’s a loose end out there that can take him down, Elliot wonders.

“Pam Dwyer,” Crowder says, almost absently.

“We’re going to show her your photo,” Fin says. “And I think she’ll suddenly remember why the killer was so familiar.”

Crowder suddenly looks hopeful again. “She won’t pick me,” he says. “Show her!”

Elliot feels a thread of surprise.

Fin keeps going. “Why didn’t you just finish her off at the hospital?” he demands. “Did Olivia get there too soon?”

Crowder frowns. He’s listening, but not responding. Elliot frowns with him. Something weird is going on.

“You learned a lesson though, didn’t you?” Fin continues. “Because you made sure Lucy went down, even though you had to switch M.O.’s. Pam couldn’t identify you, or at least, she didn’t, even though you were in news reports about the case. But Lucy… she was just starting to get involved. So you made sure she went down.”

Crowder looks up, staring at Fin as if he’s just been gut-shot. “I need to talk to Stabler,” he demands.

Behind the glass, Elliot lifts an eyebrow and waits.

“No,” Fin says. “Your little stunt with Detective Stabler has ended all that. You talk to me.”

Crowder’s expression twists into anger. “I need to talk to Stabler, now!” He glances behind Fin at the glass and shouts, “Stabler! You gotta get in here! I know who did it, and you’ve got to check on Olivia!”

Elliot stands up straight at that. What the fuck kind of game is he playing now?

Fin tries to cut Crowder off, but Crowder brushes him aside. “Stabler!” he yells. Almost roars. “He’s going to go after her! She’s the only other one who can make the connection! He has to eliminate her or it won’t work!”

Elliot starts to feel that anger creeping back. Along with a thread of worry. Crowder clearly knows how to manipulate him.

Fin finally turns around and glances back at the mirror, and Elliot heads for the door.

“What the hell kind of game are you playing now?” he demands as he walks in the room.

Crowder’s eyes show instant relief, and he stands up in a rush of energy. “You’ve got to check on her! He’ll go for her now! He has to know I’ve been arrested, and he’ll go for her!”

“Who?”

“Roland Peterson!” he yells, angrily. “He’s doing it. I didn’t want to believe it, but… it has to be.”

“Your ex-partner?” Elliot gives him a dubious look.

“Yes!”

“I thought you wanted a lawyer,” Elliot says, trying to shut him up. “Tell him this story. It’ll make a nice defense. Blame your partner.”

“Listen to me!” Crowder almost roars, and his eyes are ferocious. It brings Elliot up short. “He was at the hospital the night we saw Pam, and Olivia told him about Lucy right before she was killed. You see? You’ve got to check on Liv and Pam. They’re the only loose ends! Once he gets them, I’ll have no defense!”

Elliot falters then. He hasn’t been working the case long enough to feel personally involved, but Olivia’s name settles deep in his gut and digs at him.

“Please!” Crowder finally begs. “You can chain me up in a cell. I’m not going anywhere! Just go and check on her!”

Elliot glances at Fin. Fin lifts both brows as if to say, “Well?”

“If this is just a way of trying to throw a wrench in things, Crowder…” Elliot threatens.

“I’ll be right here when you get back!” Crowder growls. “Jesus Christ! Just go check on her. Please!”

Elliot stares at him for one more moment, and then the panic takes him. He gives one glance at Fin, and then he’s running for the door.

* * * *

She doesn’t have time to go for her gun.

She manages to smash the glass she has in her hand against his head just as he hits her, and she feels the wetness of the water and the blood slick up her hand. Then her back hits the edge of the sink and pain splits around her waist.

She grunts and tries to put her knee in his crotch, but he’s so close, so heavy that she can barely move him. She tries to go for his eyes, his mouth, his nose, and he’s pressing against her so hard that his hands are free to grab her wrists and wrench them away.

Her heart is pounding, and the pain fades fast, too overwhelmed by adrenalin.

His hands are at her waist, and all she can do is grab the butt of her pistol and hold on. He grapples with her for it, and all she can think is that she can’t lose it. She can’t lose it. She can’t lose it…

He grabs her, wrenches her sideways and knocks her head back against the refrigerator.

Sparks burst in her vision, and she feels her balance waver. She isn’t sure where she’s standing for a moment, and yet still…

 _I can’t lose it. I can’t lose it._

But he rips it from her hand, and she feels the tug against her belt as the holster goes with it.

She’s dead then, she thinks. And she expects it.

But instead, his hands close around her throat and squeeze, and suddenly she can’t breathe. She has no idea what happened to the gun.

 _Oh god…_

His eyes aren’t angry. They’re just… dead. He looks down at her with a slack expression, more interested than determined, and that scares her more than anything his hands are doing.

She has to fight her instinct that wants her to pull at his hands, and instead she reaches up, finds those dead eyes, and forces her thumbs into them. He tilts his head back, tries to stay out of her reach while still strangling her, and his weight lifts off of her, just a bit.

She immediately knees him in the groin. He groans, and for a moment, she is free.

She fights past him and heads for the door, and she only barely gets there before she feels his hands on her back again. She tries for the bolt, but he yanks her back.

It is a whirlwind then, of her body flying through space. Hitting furniture. Her hands digging into his skin, her fists hitting his body, and his hitting hers. She falls and scrambles on the floor, and the entire time he doesn’t say one word. She hears his quick, heavy breathing and the crashes of their battle, but nothing else.

It’s when he has her down on the floor that she feels it. Something sharp and cold against her ribs, pushing in.

She jumps and stares up at him, and keeps pushing at his bulk, but the cold item slips between her ribs and then it’s _inside her_ her. In the soft tissue of her side, and she realizes she’s been stabbed. He yanks it out again, and his hands aren’t going for her throat anymore, his eyes gaining anger, and she is putting up too much of a fight for him, she thinks.

It makes her fight harder.

Her side goes from cold to warm to hot. Her head is spinning.

She slides out from under him and crawls, only to have him grab her around the legs. She gets away and gets to her feet, and he takes her down again. She’s starting to feel… badly.

It makes the panic rise up in her throat.

He gets up on his knees to grab his knife again, and she kicks up with her knee again, connecting, she’s not even sure with what, and he grunts. She bolts to her feet and the room twirls around her, slanting from side to side. She feels nauseous.

And there’s the gun. On the kitchen counter, still in the holster. Because he didn’t want to kill her that way.

He’s tackling her again, and her head slams against a wooden chair on the way down. More sparks. More stars, but that gun is solid in her hand, and she refuses to let go.

She feels the point of that knife against her neck this time, and she rips at the gun one-handed, trying to free it from its holster, but the strap is still snapped.

She lifts it up and fires, right through the hard leather.

Roland jerks above her, and then collapses down, his weight pinning her.

She is so tensed that she can feel her body shaking, and she presses the gun, holster and all, to his ribs, finger buried inside against the trigger.

He makes a sound then, weakly, but all the fight is gone from him, his hands still.

And she hears pounding on the door, a voice shouting her name.

Then the splintering sound of it being kicked open, and Roland’s bulk being yanked off of her.

Elliot’s face is there, and she can’t move. She stares up at him, too shocked to do anything, even to respond.

“Liv?” he says, voice terrified. And she remembers when he said her name just like that, once before.

A warehouse. It was cold.

Just like now…

It goes dark.

* * * *

Her throat hurts.

She becomes dimly aware that she has been asleep, and now she is awake. Her throat aches and her mouth is dry. She feels that leaden weariness that she feels after she hasn’t slept for a week, working a case.

Then she remembers.

She opens her eyes, immediately, squinting at the light. She shifts, and pain lances her left side. She gasps.

There is a shuffling noise to her left, and then a warm hand closes over her fingers and Elliot’s blue eyes appear above her. “Liv?”

She stares up at him, trying to make sense of things. She wants to say his name, but when she tries, nothing comes out. His hand lands gently on her forehead and he smoothes her hair back.

“It’s okay,” he says. “Take your time. You’re in the hospital. Clay’s partner stabbed you.”

She remembers that. The knife going in, feeling cold against her warm tissue. And that’s why her throat aches, of course, He’d been strangling her…

Then she’d found her gun, struggled for it. Shot him. Then Elliot had come. She looks up at him again and licks her lips. “Roland?” Her voice is a dry rasp.

“He survived.”

She breathes. Relaxes. Aches.

“Want some water?”

She nods, and he opens a bottle from a table next to her bed and helps her sip. It wets her mouth, and he pulls it away. She can feel a needle in her arm, a clip on her finger. But for the most part, she feels whole and okay.

Behind Elliot, a man in a white coat comes into the room and gives her a big grin. “Detective! Welcome back to the land of the living!”

She narrows her eyes at his exuberance. And he walks around the bed to look down at her, checking her IV and her clip and looking into her eyes. “You remember what happened?”

She nods, and he seems satisfied.

“You were stabbed in the side,” he says, plainly. “And somehow the blade managed to miss everything important. Your guy has horrible aim. But we’ll keep you a few days. We’ll just be sure you’re on the road to recovery.”

She glances at Elliot and he gives her a wry look and a shrug. “Your doctor’s a comedian,” he says. “It’s been delightful.” His words drip with sarcasm, and she suddenly wants to laugh.

“Oh, indeed,” the doctor exclaims. “And your partner is very laid back and easy to deal with. It’s been a joy.”

She does laugh then, and then immediately winces and says, “Ow.”

“Only hurts when you laugh,” the doctor quips. She glances at him, and he grins.

She looks at Elliot. “See?” he says. “Welcome to my hell.”

She shakes her head then and collapses back into her pillow.

“How about we take care of that pain and send you off to sleep a bit more?” the doctor asks, more earnest now.

She nods, and he adjusts something on her IV, and she feels a warmth inside her head.

The doctor gives her a last smile before heading out, and she looks back at Elliot. “Thanks,” she says, quietly.

His hand smoothes her hair again. He shrugs. “It was Clay who sent me, Liv. He figured it out before all of us.” He sighs. “Well, except for you.”

She smiles and feels a little dreamy. “Told you he was a good guy.”

He gives her a crooked, dry smile. “Yeah, well. We still have to completely clear him, since Roland was so close to him, but he’s cooperating and it looks good.” He exhales. “Unfortunately.”

She smiles and squeezes his hand.

“You wanna sleep now?” he asks.

She nods. “Yeah. Go home, El. I’m fine.”

She closes her eyes, and she feels his lips against her forehead. “Not tonight,” he says, quietly. “I’ll go tomorrow.”

Then she’s asleep.

* * * *

He’s gone when she wakes again, and she feels more alert as she goes through the consultations with the comedian doctor and a round of new exams.

She was hit pretty hard in the head along with the stab wound, although she didn’t have a concussion. And her entire body aches from the fight. With the fear and adrenalin gone, and her body now relaxed and able to feel pain, she feels all the bruises, the sprained wrist, the strangling injury to her neck.

Cragen comes to see her that night.

“We arrested Roland Peterson the moment he woke up in recovery,” he tells her. “And he spilled everything.”

“Clay is cleared?” she asks. She can sit up without pain as long as she takes it slow and easy.

Cragen nods. “It was Roland all along. Angry about his termination, although he’s never been quite right. It was simply the excuse he needed. He was so proud of fooling the cops that he opened right up when Fin and Huang went in and questioned him. He told us everything.”

She breathes out slowly. “Well, that’s helpful.”

Cragen nods. “He also… He killed Pam Dwyer right before he showed up at your place. Detective Crowder was right. You two were the last two loose ends, and he had to take care of you.”

Olivia exhales slowly and closes her eyes briefly. “We should have protected her.”

Cragen gives her a tight smile. “We tried, Liv. Peterson still had department contacts who kept him in the loop. It didn’t matter.”

“He wanted to set Clay up?”

Cragen shrugs. “We’re not really sure at this point. He’s giving various reasons, and even his version of events is changing a bit. He’s actually cheerful about it all. Like we’re all great friends having a fun rivalry. Huang says that’ll change once reality sets in more firmly and he’s looking at prison.”

Olivia shakes her head and sighs.

“You just worry about healing up,” he says. “We want you back.” He pauses. “And you and Elliot have some decisions to make.”

She glances at him then, and he gives her half smile, and then he’s gone.

* * * *

Clay comes, two days later, cleared of all charges, and melancholy.

“Hey,” she says, as he sits in the chair Elliot has pulled up close to her bed and left there.

“Hey,” he says, quietly, and his blue eyes are so sober and aching that she can’t stand it.

“It’s not your fault,” she says, immediately.

He swallows and glances away. “How did I not see it?” he asks. And she knows it’s a question that she can’t answer.

“You know that killers rarely look like killers, Clay.” She tries anyway.

“I knew him.” He furrows his brow. “I thought I knew him…”

She lays her hand, palm up, in front of him. “Maybe you did know him, back when you were partners. Maybe he changed…”

Clay looks at her hand, and then takes a breath and slowly slides his palm on top of hers. She threads her fingers through his, gripping tightly.

“Huang said that losing his wife and kid was probably the stressor that prompted him to act. He probably always had the urge to kill, but he’d been managing it until then.” Clay sighs.

“Makes sense,” she agrees.

“They found his fingerprint on my bike key. I always leave it in the house on a nail by the door. For some reason he focused on me. Huang thinks he felt somehow betrayed by the fact that I wasn’t dirty.”

“That,” she says, frowning. “Makes less sense.”

He smiles faintly. “To be honest, I’m a bit staggered by all of this. None of it makes sense to me.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she squeezes his hand.

He nods, slowly, and then looks at her. “You believed in me the entire time. Captain Cragen told me.”

She smiles. “I know you. You’re not a killer.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Your partner wasn’t so sure.”

“Elliot’s a good cop, Clay. Even if it hadn’t ended like it did, he’d have cleared you eventually.”

Clay lifts one eyebrow. “We about tore each other up in the interrogation room.”

She grins at that. “Now, that… I would have paid to see.”

He rolls his eyes, but grins back. “He’s protective as _fuck_ of you, Liv. I’m glad too. Even though I might have had some fun provoking him a bit.”

“He’s intense,” she agrees, feeling a little flushed.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he says, quietly, and as seriously as she’s ever seen him.

“I’m glad you are too,” she replies. She feels a warm relief that he’s turned out to be the man she thought he was. Happiness that she has made a friend of him.

“What happens now?” he asks, softly. “You go back to SVU?”

“I don’t know,” she answers honestly. “I just need time to think.”

He thinks about that for a moment before squeezing her fingers. “I still need a partner,” he says. “Jackson had my back through this entire thing, and I’m already reinstated back in Homicide. And she’s already said that if you want the job, you’ve got it.”

Olivia feels an overwhelming sense of excitement. And then sadness. She smiles at him. “I’ll think about it. I promise. I’ve never wanted to leave SVU, to be honest, but that offer is making me think about it.”

“You can still help people. Still help kids,” he says. “And you can go home to Elliot at night. And we work well together, Liv.” He gives her an almost sad smile. “We were real partners.”

She squeezes his hand. “We were.”

He glances down and then back up with eyes that glitter a bit. “Well, then think on it. And let me know. I’ll be waiting.”

Then he leans over and kisses her on the cheek. She puts her hand on the back of his neck as he starts to pull away, and when he hesitates, she kisses him lightly on the lips. “It was good working with you, Clay. No matter what happens now.”

He lifts one eyebrow, wryly, and gives her a crooked smile. “Think wisely, Benson. Who else is going to keep you in line like I do?”

She shoves him away then, and he grins, and she hears him laughing all the way down the hall as he leaves.

* * * *

Elliot walks through the hospital doors, into the lobby, when he sees a familiar figure sitting on a bench off to the side.

Clay sits with a cup of coffee, bent forward over his knees, rubbing tiredly at his short hair. He’d been cut loose this morning, after Roland’s statements had been verified, and while they’d avoided looking at each other, Elliot had assumed he’d go and see Olivia.

Elliot hesitates, wondering if he should just walk on by. But… There’d been no chance to talk to him after the event at Olivia’s apartment. He hadn’t gone back to the precinct for nearly 24 hours, and then, when he had, Cragen had barred him from any further investigation, citing too many personal conflicts.

Cragen had been right, but it had still stung.

He swallows and walks slowly toward the other detective. Clay doesn’t look up until Elliot sits down next to him. They make eye contact, and then Clay looks back down at his coffee again, saying nothing.

Elliot takes a breath. “Thank you,” he says, quietly. “You saved her life.” _And mine by extension_ , he thinks.

Clay pauses for a moment and then gives a half-hearted shrug. “Fin told me how it went down. Sounds like she saved herself.”

Elliot smiles faintly. “That’s Olivia for you.” He leans down, elbows on knees, mimicking Clay’s pose. “We’ve been partners thirteen years. I’ve saved her life…” He thinks about it. “Maybe, three or four times? She’s saved her own life three times that number. She’s saved mine about fifty.”

That draws an unwilling smile from Clay. “That doesn’t surprise me.” He says it with affection, and Elliot feels himself cave. He can’t _not_ see this man as a rival, but if there is anyone in the world who can understand what he feels for Olivia—how fucking _powerful_ it is—it is this man.

“Look,” he says, softly. “I’m not going to apologize for doing my job. The evidence led to you. But, you know, maybe… there was some personal conflict in that interview room. And I was acting on that. And… I’m sorry. About that part.”

Clay glances at him and huffs out a dry laugh. “Thanks,” he says, maybe a little embarrassed. “I wasn’t nearly as helpful as I should have been either. I was baiting you. I couldn’t help it. I got defensive. I’m sorry about that.”

Elliot nods slightly. “I can promise you,” he says. “That I didn’t deliberately want to put an innocent man in prison. I thought you were guilty. If you’d been convicted and I found out later you didn’t do it? I’d have never stopped trying to get you out, no matter who you are.”

Clay looks at him then, and Elliot holds his gaze, feeling ridiculously nervous. Clay nods. “I believe you.”

“You’re a better man than I am then. I don’t know if I’d believe you, if our positions had been reversed.”

“I believe you,” Clay says. “Because Olivia believes you. And she loves you. After thirteen years, which is longer than most marriages last nowadays, she still loves you. And that says something.”

It does. It does say something. “Yes,” Elliot quips. “That’s she’s very forgiving and doesn’t hold a grudge.”

Clay laughs at that, ducking his head. “Yeah, well…” he says, nodding. “That too.”

“She told me you asked her to be your permanent partner.”

Clay takes a breath. “Yeah, I proposed.” He sends a smirk Elliot’s way. “But she hasn’t accepted yet. I just thought… if you two can’t be partners anymore…”

Elliot feels a pang at that, but he nods. “I’m not saying it’ll be easy for me now. I’ve had her all to myself for a long time. I’m going to be an occasional pain in the ass.”

Clay’s mouth pulls sideways in a resigned gesture. “I’m used to that.”

Elliot smirks. “She’s worth it,” he says. “She’s the best partner I’ve ever had, even before all the feelings got in the way. You watch her back and you send her home to me safe. And I’ll… keep working on the rest.”

Clay glances at him. “Provided she says yes, of course.”

“Of course.”

They look at each other for a long, studious moment. And then Clay shifts and holds his hand out, palm up.

Elliot glances at it, and then back into Clay’s eyes, and then he grabs Clay’s hand with a firm grip.

They shake.

* * * *

Elliot takes her home, five days after she wakes up.

He walks her carefully up the stairs to his apartment, because her own is still a crime scene and needs cleaning, and she feels pretty solid now, although both her throat and her side are sore.

She’s off the streets for six weeks while the stab wound heals and the paperwork is completed, and for once she’s not in a hurry to get back.

The time off, and the time to think, will be a luxury.

“He knows,” Elliot had told her, when she’d asked about Cragen. “But he doesn’t want to hear anything else until we know what we want to do about it.”

And that had made a lot of sense, because that’s Cragen. He fights for his people, and he wants them happy.

It is mid-afternoon as she walks into his bedroom and he helps her strip off her jacket and get into bed. There’s a card on his nightstand. Get well soon. And she looks at it curiously.

“The kids all signed it,” he says, looking faintly embarrassed.

She looks at him in surprise. “Your kids?”

He gives her an amused look. “Yes, my kids. Who did you think?”

“I just…” She reaches carefully for the card, wincing as her side twinges, and reads it, touched. Kathleen has signed her name with hearts and smiley faces. Dickie signed ‘Rich’ in block letters. Even Kathy’s name is there, and she looks up at Elliot with amazement.

“We did this right,” he tells her, softly, climbing up on the bed next to her. “I told you they’d come around in time.”

She puts the card back and lies down again, and Elliot lies next to her, surrounding her with heat.

“I don’t know if I can leave SVU,” she says, quietly.

He tucks an elbow under his head and his hand slides gently onto her hip. “You have a partner waiting that you like,” he points out. “Someone you know you can trust. That’s rare, Liv.”

“I know,” she replies, and she feels the way it tears at her, almost as strongly as the stab wound in her side. “I just… I don’t know what to do.”

“You have some time,” he tells her.

She exhales slowly. “Maybe it’s time for a change.”

He leans over her, his mouth close to hers, carefully keeping his weight off her body. “As long as _this_ doesn’t change—this here—then I can handle anything else.”

She slides a hand onto his nape and pulls his mouth to hers. It’s a slow, wet, intense kiss, and it makes her take a deep breath when he pulls away.

He smiles at her, with a piercing, hungry gaze. “You want something else?” he offers quietly. “Take your mind off things? I promise… I can make you come without hurting you.”

It sends an ache through her body and makes her want him. But she’s tired too, and she took pain pills on the drive home.

“Later,” she murmurs, smiling and pulling him down. “Sleep with me right now.”

He stretches out next to her, his heavy arm resting across her hips, below the area in her side that’s wounded. His mouth is close to her ear, and he says, “You need the rest anyway, Liv.”

She smiles at the tickle of his breath against her skin.

“Because,” he continues, voice low and rough and almost sleepy. “When the doctor clears you, I’m going wreck the _shit_ out of you.”

She shivers.

* * * *

Six months later:

Although it isn’t officially spring yet, the city seems to have forgotten winter. The trees are still bare and the sun sets early, but the snow has long since melted away.

The rain still keeps the pavement wet, but it’s warm. Warmer than usual.

Olivia can wear her light leather jacket in comfort.

Her cell phone vibrates against her hip as she parks the car, and she turns off the engine but sits for a while, flipping the phone open to read the text.

 _You on your way?”_ Elliot.

She looks toward the bar where they’re supposed to meet, and it looks dead. The neon red lights shout that they’re open, but there’s no crowd milling behind the window. The rain has put a damper on the night. And it’s a Thursday.

 _Almost there._ She texts back.

 _Hurry up._ His immediate reply. And she grins at his impatience. Not necessarily because he misses her, so much as she’s likely the last member to show. So he’s in there all alone with her partner. And his.

She gets out and locks the car and jogs across the street in the rain. It’s sometimes hard to believe that it’s only been one year since any of this started. Since Mary Dunn went missing, and Elliot’s marriage went south, and he showed up at her door to tell her he was in love with her.

Half a year since she’d been stabbed by the Holy Roller serial killer. And put him away.

Well. They’d always lived fast and hard. The life demanded it, maybe.

Inside, the lights glow warm, and there is music playing quietly. No big crowd, like on the weekends, and she sees Elliot sitting at the bar.

These days he wears T-shirts and jeans that cling to his muscles and big black work boots that highlight his swagger. He looks up as she walks in, and his gaze stays with her. He smiles.

She walks toward him with eagerness, amazed, maybe, at how much she can miss him after only eight hours.

Before she reaches him, she’s hijacked by a pair of arms around her shoulders and a voice booming, “Benson! You decided to show up after all!”

Elliot rolls his eyes, and she’s laughing then and patting Clay on the arm. “Crowder!” She says, mocking him a little. “As if I could ever ignore you! As if you’d ever let me.”

Clay laughs in her ear and presses a kiss to her temple, and he’s only doing it to get a rise out of Elliot, she knows. “Don’t worry,” he says, as he walks them both toward Elliot at the bar. “I have faith that you’ll smarten up and drop Stabler some day just to date me.”

“Alright, alright,” Elliot grumbles at them, although she can see the smile hiding in his expression. He grabs Olivia by the hand and pulls her out of Clay’s embrace. “Knock it off, dickweed.”

He smiles at her as she leans in for a quick kiss, his hand sliding along her lower back.

“Your boyfriend has no sense of humor,” Clay states, leaning on the bar next to them. His blue eyes glitter at her.

She shrugs at that, reaching for the glass of beer Elliot pours for her. “Actually, he’s pretty amusing once you get to know him.” She sips and then turns to look pointedly at Clay. “And he’s _your_ partner. If you want him to get funnier, buy him a book of jokes or something.”

Clay just shakes his head. “I don’t know what you see in him, Benson. He’s a miserable bastard.”

“Well, he’s my miserable bastard, I guess,” she counters, and Elliot’s hands slide around her waist.

“You’re lucky I took pity on you when Olivia turned you down,” Elliot says then, reaching for his beer.

“If it wasn’t for me,” Clay says. “You two would still be pining away for each other. It was very sad, to be honest. You’re lucky I took pity on _you_ instead of just chasing Olivia down for myself.”

At that, Elliot leans forward and gives him a piercing gaze. “It wouldn’t have mattered if you had, partner. I’d have taken her right the fuck away from you. I guarantee it.”

Olivia sighs. “Okay, if this is what we’re going to do, I’m going to find _my_ partner now.”

“She’s not here yet,” Elliot says, leaning back and exchanging a grin with Clay.

“What a shame,” Clay mutters.

But as if on cue, the bar door opens and a slender woman rushes in out of the rain, her long, straight, auburn hair tied back and wet. She pulls a pair of black-rimmed glasses from her face and wipes them carefully on a towel pulled from the pocket of her light trench, and then she places them back on her face and looks up.

Olivia smiles at her. “Over here, E.”

Enid Warren smiles carefully back and walks toward them, sliding her trench off and shaking it gently to rid it of rain.

They’d just celebrated her 33rd birthday last weekend, and yet Olivia thinks that Enid reminds her of herself when she’d first started with Elliot. She wears fashionable pants suits and approaches the job with logic and determination.

But then the similarities end.

“Einstein,” Clay mutters in greeting as she passes him.

“Meathead,” E mutters back casually, and then she smiles at Olivia. “Red wine please.”

Olivia has already ordered it, and the bartender slides it onto the countertop.

“What did the D.A. say?” Olivia asks, handing the wine glass over.

E drapes her trench carefully over the back of an empty stool and then takes the glass and sips at it. “He said it’s a stretch,” she replies with a sigh. “I think we’re going to have to fight this one, Liv. He said to expect a lot of long nights.”

Olivia groans and leans back against Elliot’s thigh. His arm is warm and soft behind her back, shielding her from the bar, and it feels soothing.

“You guys play way too nice with the D.A.’s office,” Clay says. “You gotta play hardball with them.”

Enid looks toward the ceiling, always terminally annoyed with Clay, and says, “Yes, I can see your point. The key to a fair justice system is clearly to run roughshod over the law and bully your way into a win.”

Olivia snorts.

“Well, it works for the defense,” Elliot points out.

E just emits a long-suffering sigh, and Olivia grins in half amusement, half delight.

She hadn’t been at all sure that Enid would make any sort of good detective when Cragen had first brought her in. But Enid had been determined, and she’d learned, and as they’d gotten to know each other, Olivia had realized that out of all the detectives she’d watched go through SVU, Enid was maybe the one who stood the best chance of sticking around.

It had taken Olivia two months of recuperation time to get back to work, and then she and Elliot had had to decide what to do with their relationship. She’d bonded with Clay during their summer as partners. She trusted him. She even wanted to continue that partnership, but in the end she just hadn’t been able to leave Special Victims. It was where she belonged. She’d been meant for the job the way some people are meant for the ministry.

But she hadn’t wanted to leave Clay out in the wind. And Elliot had had to find his own place, away from her. And so she’d realized the solution was right in front of them. The two men she trusted the most, needed to trust each other.

And while there’d been grumbling at first, it had worked amazingly well. As she’d known they would, they’d fallen in together like brothers after their first hard case. Elliot, serious and intense, Clay, easy-going and affectionate.

It had been a load of worry off her mind.

And then Enid had come. And in only a couple of months, they’d all gone from calling her ‘Enid’ to ‘E’, and she and Olivia had traded tragic pasts like secrets in grade school. Olivia and her mother and her rapist father. E and her own alcoholic mother, then her young husband who died in a car accident at the age of 25. She can never quite win.

She’s a voracious reader and a whiz at math, and the rest of the department thinks she’s crazy for being a cop, but it’s all she’s ever wanted to do, and Olivia can understand that. Maybe even better than most.

Sometimes she gets too lost inside her own head, and she can’t see past her own logic, missing the forest for the trees, but that’s why Olivia is there. To keep her grounded. To teach. While E keeps reminding her of why she ever wanted to do this job in the first place.

Plus, E and Clay get along like fire and ice, and it’s amusing.

“Two out of three games of pool,” Clay says to E, deviance in his gaze. “Winner pays for the loser’s drinks all night.”

E sighs dramatically. “You always lose, Crowder. You know that.”

“I’ve been practicing a few secret moves,” Clay insists. “I’ve got you tonight.”

E glances at Olivia with a subtly amused expression. “Very well,” she pronounces. “Rack ‘em up.”

Clay starts toward the pool table with eagerness, and E gives both Olivia and Elliot a smirk before turning to follow.

“I think our partners are going to be sleeping together by fall,” Olivia says when E is out of earshot.

Elliot shrugs. “Yeah? Thank God. He never stops talking about her. It’s fucking annoying.”

She looks toward the table where Clay is setting the billiard balls into the plastic triangle on the table while E is chalking a stick. They’re smirking at each other, but there’s something else there as well.

She realizes that Clay is looking at E the way Elliot used to look at her, in their first year. Like he can’t decide if he wants to hug her, kiss her or throttle her.

She smiles and eases down on the stool next to Elliot as the quiet and stillness finally settles around them.

“Hey,” Elliot calls, softly.

She glances at him, and he leans toward her. She lets him kiss her, and she opens her mouth under his. He settles a hand on the back of her neck, keeping her right against him as he slides his tongue against hers.

When she pulls away, he grins and says, “That’s better.”

She smiles at him and looks at his T-shirt and his jeans and she says, “You know, I kind of miss the suits.”

He lifts one brow. “Yeah? I’ll put one on when we get home.”

She laughs. _No sense of humor, my ass._ “You’ll wear a tie to bed for me?” she teases.

“Hell yes,” Elliot retorts, and he gives her that look. The one that says he wants to eat her whole. That he wants to wreck her and ruin her and take her ability to form full sentences away.

She shifts on her stool, suddenly wanting to grab him by the hand and lead him home.

But the bartender puts a fresh pitcher of beer in front of them, and Elliot pours another glass, and so she turns and puts her back to the bar and watches as Clay and E play pool, with Elliot’s thigh pressed against hers.

E leans down over the table, ready to send the cue ball against the felt side, in a banking shot with angles and arcs and maybe quantum physics for all Olivia knows.

Just as she’s about to shoot, Clay reaches over and jars her stick with his, sending the cue ball careening off to the side.

“Ahh!” E cries, then she glares at Clay. “Cretin!”

Olivia laughs as Clay wrinkles his nose and stands up straight, blinking at E. “Cretin?” he repeats. “Who even _says_ that outside of comic book villains?”

“I do,” E says, and then she lines up another shot and hits, and the cue ball immediately lifts into the air and sails toward Clay, passing off the edge of the table. He has to dart out of the way before it hits him between the legs, and he nearly slips and falls.

“You did that on purpose!” he accuses.

E only grins.

Next to Olivia, Elliot snorts in laughter. She smiles too, and sips her beer.

They watch the game for a while longer and then Elliot asks, “You have any regrets? About Crowder, I mean?”

She thinks about that for a while. For a long time she found the whole thing a sort of cruel joke. She could have really fallen for Clay. They could have cared about each other in a way that few people do. If she’d met him before Elliot decided to come after her…

“I don’t think so,” she says, finally. She turns to face Elliot, resting her feet on the bottom of his bar stool, between his legs. “To be honest, El, I think I needed him.”

Elliot slides forward until he’s on the edge of his stool and they’re in each other’s personal space. He likes to talk close, especially in public places, and he’s always been that way. He wants private conversations to be private.

She looks at Clay and then back at Elliot. “I think he was the perfect guy at the perfect time somehow. Because I needed to _choose_ you. Not just settle for you because we’d been partners for so long and there was no one else in my life. I needed to have a guy like Clay who was a real option for me. Someone I could actually fall for and be happy with, separate from you. And I needed to choose you anyway. Over him.”

Elliot looks at her for a long time. And then his mouth turns up slightly at the corners. “So, he was all part of the plan, is that it?”

“The plan?” She glances at his mouth. He’s close, and she wants to be closer.

“The plan fate had for us all along.”

She laughs a little at that. “I don’t know how you do that, El. How you keep believing in that, even after everything that’s happened.”

He looks directly into her eyes then with a steady gaze, and he says, “I’m a man of faith, Liv.” He tilts his forehead against hers and smiles. “I believe in providence.”

~end~


End file.
